The other day I had a bit of a wakeup call…  I was reminiscing about starting playing polocrosse back in 1997 when Pony Club first adopted the sport as a discipline when one of our up-and-coming junior players said ‘1997?  That’s when I was born!’. 

While many of us think of those early days as the start of a great sport, polocrosse actually has much older roots.  The origins of the mother sports of polo and lacrosse are both uncertain, though estimates vary from as early as the 6th century BC and the 12th Century AD respectively.  The origins of polocrosse are more clear. 

In 1938, the Hirst family of Sydney Australia read about an exercise being used at The National School of Equitation near London, England.  The exercise required riders to use a combination of a polo stick and a squash racquet to scoop up a ball and deposit it into a modified basketball net.  The exercise had been developed by two of the school’s riding instructors as a way to encourage riders to improve their communication with and control of their horses.  Mr. and Mrs. Hirst, horse breeders and horse sport enthusiasts, were interested in the exercise and visited the riding school on a visit to the UK.  They immediately recognized the possibility of turning the exercise into an outdoor horse sport, and returned to Australia with racquets and balls. 

Back in Australia, the Hirsts recruited the help of Mr. Alf Pitty, an avid horseman and polo player, to develop the rules for a new and exciting sport.  After much trial and error, the sport of polocrosse was born in 1938.  To make the sport more exciting and more interesting, restrictions were put on where the riders could ride and where they could carry the ball.   Structuring the game in this way ensured that the ball would be passed between the players making the sport a better skilled, faster, and exciting game.  The sport was also set up to allow each rider to use only one horse, making the sport more affordable.  

In 1939, Mr. Pitty gave a demonstration of the skills required for polocrosse at a local riding club, and the interest was so great that the club members were soon playing. Later that year the first Polocrosse Club was formed.  During World War II the sport suffered a set-back as men and horses went off to war and the nation turned its attention to more important matters, but a few keen enthusiasts, primarily the women of the club, kept the sport going. 

A second club was formed in 1945, and polocrosse quickly spread across Australia.  Over the years other countries have become interested in polocrosse, and in 1976 the International Polocrosse Council was formed with Mr. Max Walters as its first president.  Polocrosse was brought to the United States in the 1980s by students from Lake Erie College who had spent a semester abroad and who brought equipment and enthusiasm for the sport back to the states.   The sport was accepted as a USPC resource in 1994, and in 1997 it was accepted as an activity. 

Polocrosse is a fast-paced, action-packed sport that engenders enthusiasm and camaraderie in people of all ages from all walks of life.  Because polocrosse involves an equal combination of brains, brawn, and athleticism, polocrosse is one of the few sports where men and women play on equal footing.  Polocrosse is an ideal and highly popular family sport, and is a great fit for the USPC, where the skills of horsemanship and sportsmanship are promoted and developed.