Olympic Sports of Yesteryear: Polo

It has been a century since Paris hosted the Olympic Games, and undeniably the 2024 Summer Olympics will look quite different from the 1924 Olympics. The 1924 Olympics had 17 sports and 126 medal events, while the 2024 Olympics features 32 sports and 329 medal events. Only about 5% of athletes in 1924 were women, while in 2024 that number is around 50%. In 1924, 44 nations were represented, but in 2024, there are athletes from 206 nations competing in the games. A highlight of the 1924 Olympics included the performance of Johnny Weissmuller (who later became an actor known for his portrayal of Tarzan) who won three gold medals in swimming and a bronze in water polo.

     

Paris has now hosted the Olympics three times: 1900, 1924 & 2024. While many sports have been added, others have faded away. One sport which was part of the 1900 & 1924 games, but will not be part of the 2024 games, is polo. What is polo, why is it no longer part of the Olympics, and what is the sport’s connection to Staatsburgh?

Although polo was an Olympic sport, only a few nations were able to support a team. A total of 9 nations have competed in the sport during five Summer Olympics Games (1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, & 1936).  In the 1900 Olympics, five teams competed, but three of those teams consisted of a combination of British and French players.  The other teams to compete were the United States and Mexico.  Great Britain and Argentina both won two gold medals each during polo’s run as an Olympic sport. 

1900 Olympic Gold Medalist Foxhall Keen
Credit: Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame

Polo is a game consisting on players on horseback trying to hit a ball into a goal. There have been many variations of the sport, but all of the polo matches in the Olympic Games were played on a large field that covered a little more than nine football fields. Teams consist of four players on horseback trying to score a goal using mallets that resemble an elongated croquet mallet. Usually each person on the team needs at least 2 horses (and sometimes more!) during the course of a match. The sport requires a high level of both skill and strategy. Players must have excellent riding skills in order to ride at a high speed, while also having good hand-eye coordination to hit the ball while moving at a rapid pace.

Polo in the 1900 Olympics
Credit :Wikipedia

Even though most Olympic polo teams were European, the sport actually had origins in Asia. A version of the sport was first played by Persians in Central Asia as early as 600 BCE as part sport, part war training exercise. The game became formalized and spread to Turkey, China, Japan and India. It was in Manipur, India that the modern version of the game became popular in the nineteenth century. Given that India was occupied by the British, British military officers saw locals playing the game, created a polo club, and then transported it back to Britain where it spread throughout Europe.

Polo depicted on an ancient Chinese Scrool
Credit: Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame

In 1876, newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett (1841-1918) saw a polo match in England and decided to bring a set of mallets, balls, and rules back to the United States. He was credited with organizing the first polo match in the United States and was also a founder of the Westchester Polo Club, which eventually moved to Newport, Rhode Island. Soon the sport spread throughout the country and by 1900 there were 23 polo clubs in existence. The International Polo Cup was created in 1886 and quickly became one of the most anticipated sporting events each year.

The American and British Polo teams in action, 1914
Credit: Library of Congress

The sport has often been associated with wealth and social status because of the high costs and resources needed to maintain the equipment, horses, and facilities necessary for the sport. It takes a lot of resources to breed, train, and house horses. Polo clubs frequently had an air of exclusivity and were not open to everyone. The logistical challenges involved with the field space and horses were a major reason that the popularity of polo waned approaching World War II. It never made it back into the Olympics after the war, and the last year it was included was 1936. Polo has evolved and adapted to the changing times over the years and still has a presence in the sporting world. The polo community is making an effort to increase popularity and diversify participation. Even the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame has an extensive statement on their website devoted to the goal of increasing the equity and inclusion of the sport.

A Staatsburgh Polo Connection

Although we haven’t found any evidence that members of the Mills family played polo, the Staatsburgh guestbook included the signature of arguably one of the best American polo players of all time, Devereux Milburn (1881-1942).

Devereux Milburn was on the cover of TIME magazine in 1927

Born in Buffalo, NY, Milburn’s father was a lawyer and notably the chairman of the Pan American Exposition in 1901. When President McKinley was shot at the event, he was taken to the Milburn home where he succumbed to his injuries. Milburn started playing polo in school and eventually played in college when he attended Oxford. Milburn followed his father’s career path and became a lawyer, but he actively continued to play competitive polo for many years.

The Brooklyn Eagle, August 24, 1924, p. 41

Milburn never played in the Olympics, but he was on a team called “The Big Four,” which was the American polo team that competed internationally. His team won the Westchester Cup, the renowned international polo championship, six times! The term “Big Four” was first used when Milburn was on the team in 1909 along with Harry Payne Whitney, Lawrence Waterbury, and Monte Waterbury. It was still used in 1927 when Milburn was joined by three different teammates, James Watson Webb II, Tommy Hitchcock Jr, and Malcolm Stevenson.

The 1921 winning American team at the International Polo Cup
(From L to R: Louis Ezekiel Stoddard, Thomas Hitchcock, Jr., James Watson Webb, Sr. and Devereaux Milburn)

Milburn’s main residence was Sunridge Hall in Old Westbury, Long Island, but he also had a home in Aiken, South Carolina, which was a popular location for polo in the beginning of the 20th century. When Milburn visited Staatsburgh, he was here the evening before the 1907 wedding between Gladys Mills and Henry Carnegie Phipps. The Phipps family had homes in Old Westbury and it is likely their circles crossed on Long Island.

Milburn's signature in Staatsburgh's guestbook

Devereux Milburn in his student days, circa 1890s
Source: Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame

Milburn died playing golf at the Meadow Brook Club, in Old Westbury, which is the longest continuously operating polo club in the United States.  He was a sportsman to the end.  Posthumously, he was inducted to the Polo Hall of Fame during its inaugural year in 1990, and contemporary players described him as “the wonder of the polo age.” 

While polo is no longer an Olympic Sport, you may still hear the word ‘polo’ associated with the Olympics.  Water polo has been an Olympic sport for men since 1900.  The women’s event was added in 2000 and they both will be part of this summer’s games.  Thankfully for the organizers, water polo only involves a pool and not a few dozen horses!

Source: Wikimedia Commons