Make polo a part of your Sunday, aficionado says

Mike Dailey has broken his collarbone and a foot playing polo. He’s also cracked and bruised a few ribs, has had wounds that required stitches and has suffered four concussions, one of which left him in a coma for five days.

He talks about those mishaps matter-of-factly; after all, injury is among the risks of playing a sport that involves riding horses galloping 30 mph to hit a hard plastic ball that’s a little larger than a baseball.

Dailey is president of the Hawaii Polo Club, which counts his dad, Fred, among its founding members. Based in Moku­leia on Oahu’s North Shore, the club is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

"Our focus is growing the sport of polo in Hawaii, attracting the interest of new players and helping educate people about the game," Dailey said. "Club members are organized into different teams each week. We also play against visiting teams that come from the neighbor islands, the mainland and abroad."

His passion for horses was sparked by his dad, who was raised on a farm in Illinois and belonged to the Chicago National Guard’s cavalry in the Roaring ’20s. During World War II the elder Dailey, an Army intelligence officer, passed through Hawaii and thought it was a beautiful place. He and his wife, Elizabeth "Murph," moved from California to Oahu in 1952, five months before Mike was born.

"I’ve been riding horses since I could walk," Dailey said. "My dad was a great polo player, and he started teaching me the game when I was 10. I would help exercise his horses and wrap their legs for matches."

Each polo team consists of four players on horseback who score by hitting a small white ball between the opposing team’s goalposts using long-handled mallets. Hawaii Polo Club’s regular matches are divided into four 71⁄2-minute periods called chukkers. Including breaks, each game lasts about an hour.

POLO ponies (as they’re called, even though they’re full-size horses) are important members of the team. According to Dailey, conformation is key: The ponies should have straight legs, good depth in the chest and lungs, a well-rounded rear for power and a short back, enabling them to stop and turn quickly.

"I want a horse with energy but that also has a sensitive mouth so I have control and brakes," Dailey said. "I want a horse that has no problem meeting another horse on the field with strength and aggression. The perfect polo pony has the heart of a jousting horse, the speed of a racehorse, the suppleness of a dressage horse and the quick moves of a reining and cutting horse."

Every Sunday during the season, up to 1,500 spectators line Moku­leia Field to watch the athletes, both horses and humans, in action. Dailey suggests making polo part of a full-day outing.

"Enjoy a leisurely drive to the North Shore, take a dip in the ocean, nap on the beach, bring a picnic or buy lunch from the food trucks and concession stands," he said. "Watch the games and awards ceremony, and stay for the live music and dancing until sunset. It’s a grand party in the country, and everyone’s invited!"

Game of kings

Supposedly the oldest team sport in history, polo was first played in Persia (now Iran) more than 2,500 years ago. It started out as a training exercise for cavalry units, with up to 100 men playing on each team.

As polo spread across the Asian continent, including China and India, royals adopted it as a way to display their skill, courage and horsemanship. Thus, polo became known as the "game of kings."

British tea planters in India first saw polo being played in the early 1800s. By the middle of the century, it had become a popular pastime in England, and from there it moved to America and other parts of Europe.

It would be natural to assume polo traveled westward from the East Coast of America, eventually coming to Hawaii, but that’s not the case. As the story goes, rancher Louis von Tempsky introduced Hawaii island paniolo (cowboys) to the game in the early 1880s.

Von Tempsky was born in Scotland but grew up in New Zealand, where polo had been introduced from India. From Hawaii island, horsemen took polo to the rest of the islands.

On Oahu, polo was played at Moanalua Gardens, Schofield Barracks, Honolulu Stadium and Kapiolani Park, where King Kalakaua was an avid spectator in the late 1880s.

WITH THE onset of World War II, polo in Waikiki stopped. It wasn’t revived until 1956 when Fred Dailey built the Waikikian hotel* and helped establish the Waikiki Polo Club.

In 1965 the stables at Kapiolani Park closed, and polo matches there stopped — victims of urbanization. Meanwhile, Dailey had received an invitation from his friend, respected businessman Walter Dillingham, to groom a field on Dillingham land in Mokuleia for polo. Dailey agreed, and in the fall of 1963, the Hawaii Polo Club debuted with a short opening season.

* The Waikikian was a major sponsor of polo in Waikiki from 1956 to 1963 and Mokuleia from 1963 to 1978, when Dailey sold the hotel and retired. It hosted teams and celebrity players from around the world, including Prince Charles of England in the early 1970s. The hotel was razed in 2005 to make way for the Grand Waikikian Suites time-share resort.

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.