Polo handicap

A polo handicap is a system created by Henry Lloyd Herbert, the first president of the United States Polo Association, at the founding of the USPA in 1890 so teams could be more evenly matched when using players with varying abilities.[1]

The players are rated on a scale from minus-2 to 10. Minus-2 indicates a novice player, while a player rated at 10 goals has the highest handicap possible. It is so difficult to attain a 10-goal handicap that there are fewer than two dozen in the world, and about two-thirds of all players handicapped are rated at two goals or less. All living ten-goalers are Argentine, with the exception of David Stirling who was born in Uruguay - although he plays in Argentina, too.

Handicaps of five goals and above generally belong to professional players. It is not (nor has it ever been) an estimate of the number of goals a player might score in a game, but rather of the player's worth to his or her team. It is the overall rating of a player's horsemanship, team play, knowledge of the game, strategy and horses. At one time, polo was the only sport in the world that considered sportsmanship when rating a player.[2]

In matches played by "handicapped" players (as opposed to open competition, where handicaps are not considered), the handicaps of all four players are totaled. If the total handicap of a team is more than that of the team against which they are playing, the difference is added to the scoreboard. For example, if the "Mounties" polo team has a total handicap of six goals and the "Tayto" team has a handicap of four goals, Tayto would begin the match with a two-goal advantage.[2]

Ten-goal players

Nine-goal players

Eight-goal players

References

  1. ↑ Horace A. Laffaye (2009). The Evolution of Polo. McFarland & Company. p. 99. ISBN 0-7864-3814-2. Two years before the foundation of the Polo Association, Henry Lloyd Herbert had the brilliant idea of assigning individual handicaps to polo players who were to compete for the Turnure Cups and the Herbert Trophies. ...
  2. 1 2 "Polo 101". US Polo Association. Retrieved 2011-04-14.
  3. ↑ Polo in the United States. Retrieved 2012-11-19. ... Rodolphe Louis Agassiz reached the 10-goal summit.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Polo Players Handicap, Federation of International Polo. Retrieved February 27, 2012 Archived December 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Leonard Mosley (1985). Zanuck: The rise and fall of Hollywood's last tycoon. McGraw-Hill. His name was Aidan Roark and he was a charming Englishman and a ten-goal player of polo. Aside from his skill with a mount and a polo mallet, Roark really didn't have a brain in his head. Zanuck installed him in an office at Fox and ...
  6. ↑ Retrieved October 29, 2014
  7. ↑ "Died". Time. March 22, 1948. Retrieved 2011-04-13. Louis Ezekiel Stoddard, 70, socialite polo star of three decades ago; of a heart ailment; in Los Angeles. He played on two international challenge teams (1913, 1921), became a ten-goal man in 1922.
  8. ↑ Laffaye, Horace A. (2007). "Johnny Traill: An Irishman from the Pampas". Profiles in Polo:The Players Who Changed the Game. McFarland & Company. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-7864-3131-1.
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