The variants
One game, many mounts
From Manipur's ponies to elephants, camels, snow and bicycles — the surprising family of polo.
Polo is not a single game but a family of them — bound by one idea: a rider, a mallet, a ball, and a goal to aim at.
Change the surface, the mount or the team size and you change the whole character of the contest, yet the soul stays the same. Some variants are serious competitive codes in their own right; others are glorious one-offs played for charity or spectacle. All of them trace back to the same valley in north-east India.
The original
Where it all began
Before any of the variants below, there was sagol kangjei in Manipur — the Meitei game of pony and stick that the British watched, codified and carried to the world. Every code that follows is, in one way or another, a descendant of it.
Wherever there is a mount willing to carry a rider toward a ball, someone has turned it into polo.
Different ground
Played on horseback — different surfaces
The mainstream variants keep the horse but change the arena. Each was born of a practical need — less space, harder weather, a beach, a crowd — and grew into a code of its own.
Sagol kangjei
Manipur, India · the originThe ancestral game from which all polo descends. Seven riders a side on small Manipuri ponies, a willow-root ball, longer-handled sticks and rules subtly different from the modern code. It is still played today and honoured as the living root of the sport.
Arena polo
Enclosed sand arena · 3 a sidePlayed three a side in a walled, sand-floored arena roughly a tenth the size of a grass field, with a larger, softer, leather ball. The boards keep the ball live, the pace is relentless, and it is how most newcomers — and most clubs in colder climates — actually learn the game.
Snow polo
St. Moritz, Cortina, Aspen · 3 a sidePolo on a packed-snow field, usually a frozen lake. Teams of three play with a larger, brightly coloured ball so it can be seen against the white, and the ponies wear studded shoes for grip. The St. Moritz tournament, first played in 1985, made it a glamorous fixture of the alpine winter.
Beach polo
Dubai, Miami, Sylt · 3 a sideA compact, spectator-friendly variant played on a sand arena pitched on a beach. Three a side, a soft inflatable-style ball and tight boards make for a fast, high-scoring show — as much festival as fixture.
Different mounts
Beyond the horse
The most charming branch of the family abandons the pony altogether. These variants are slower and stranger, but the geometry of attack and defence is instantly recognisable.
Elephant polo
Born in Nepal in the 1980s and long centred on the King's Cup in Thailand, elephant polo is played with extra-long mallets — up to three metres — by a player and a mahout (driver) riding each elephant. Slow, deliberate and unmistakably grand, it has raised large sums for elephant-welfare charities.
Camel polo
A desert variant from Rajasthan and the Arabian Gulf, played on camels rather than horses. The mounts are slower and the swing higher off the ground, turning the game into a test of patience and timing more than speed.
Cycle polo
Invented in Ireland in 1891, cycle polo swaps the pony for a bicycle. Its modern street form, hardcourt bike polo, is played three a side on bikes in car parks and plazas worldwide — the most accessible member of the whole polo family, needing only a bike and a mallet.
Yak & auto-rickshaw polo
Improbable but real: yak polo is played in the high Himalaya of Mongolia and Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan, while charity auto-rickshaw polo has appeared in India — proof that wherever there is a mount and a mallet, someone will make a game of it.
Next: The handicap →