"More new blood - Less blue blood"

Newcomer Of The Year

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR 2007 - ANDREW SWAFFIELD

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR 2006 - JULIAN MILLS

Growing up on a dairy farm, most of my spare time as a child was spent riding my Grandmothers welsh mountain ponies, helping Dad round up the cows, daring

my younger brother to jump the wooden gates and ditches around the farm to my Grandparents disapproval. Often resulting in one of us either falling off or breaking a gate and a loose pony bolting home.

By my early 20’s I had hunted occasionally in the winter and competed at most equine sports at various levels, but it wasn’t until 22 that I was first bitten by polo.

Whilst travelling around the world I had a job in New Zealand breaking and schooling young racehorses, with the intention of spending the summer in Australia mustering cattle. However, my boss

asked if I’d like to come back for the polo season and “do his young horses” an offer I immediately accepted. Not knowing what misfortune lay ahead.

During my first game, I broke my left ankle at Hawkes Bay, trying to make a shot that defied gravity, but undeterred 10 weeks later I managed to play a whole tournament and stay in one piece

On my return to England I was determined to have a proper go at it and I was going to become a ’10 goaler’. This idea was short lived. One of my two horses injured herself combined with travelling to Taunton (Somerset) from Lingfield (Surrey) taking 3hrs each way and money running out fast, reality set in, it wasn’t going to happen. I sold my horses and concentrated on farming.

Over the next 10 years my time was spent building my ewe numbers to over 1000 head and training young collies when time allowed. Horses were put on the back burner apart from having a few days hunting and a bit of teamchasing, until one sunny afternoon in August 05.

Duane and Sallie Anne have been friends for a long time and hearing how well their new polo club was going; my wife Claire and I took our young son George to watch one Sunday. It was fatal. The adrenaline started to pump and the tiny flame I’d tried so hard to suppress turned into a raging fire! On the way home I discussed with Claire the idea of starting a new enterprise on the farm.”making polo ponies and playing a bit.”

By the following Spring I’d mustered up 10 horses and a young professional (Jimmy Mulligan) who I had known through my hunting days.

Jim and I spent April getting fit, ready for our 1st outing in May. Hours were spent schooling horses and practising shots on the flattest field I have (which is on a slight hill and very bumpy) it proved a good training ground with a bouncing ball and grass an inch longer than it should have been.

Turning up for the 1st tournament in my old cattle lorry new tack and shirts, Jim and I were really looking forward to playing on a smooth surface. All our practise payed off with the ball running true and fast on the immaculate pitch. The Black grim reaper shirts of Milligan’s notched up there first win and good fortune stayed with us for most of the season.

Over the Summer Sussex Polo has made us very welcome and I would like to thank the fellow members who put my name forward for the Newcomer of the Year Trophy. Also Duane and Sallie Anne for creating this great club and all those behind the scenes for their hard work, Jimmy for his advice and teaching me the technical side to the game. Also to Claire my patient wife for all her help and support. We look forward to seeing you all at the start of the 2007 season.

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR 2005 - JASON BARTFELD

Seven (and a bit) years ago I, by chance, met a newly engaged couple at a party. She was, as I remember, resplendent in a Lacrouix outfit. He was in Armani. They radiated warmth and happiness and exuded metropolitan cool. We bonded instantly and I gained, in Sallie Anne, the worlds most fervent and enthusiastic (but hopelessly inept!) matchmaker and, in Duane, an equally committed claret/Ferrari/cigar/adrenalin enthusiast (and a fellow expat Yank to help indulge my penchant for exposing Brits to our better traditions – Thanksgiving, Super Bowl, the Yankees etc.).

Two weeks later I was invited to their wedding, and four weeks later I not only attended it but accidentally ended up gate-crashing Duane and Sallie Anne’s shared family wedding breakfast gathering the next day (and was, as only they could do, made to feel not only welcome but as if I had been expected all along!).

All was not just well, but marvellous, with my new but very close friends. We had (not with standing Sallie Anne’s very poor taste in potential life partners for me) such mutually shared lifestyles and interests. Until the phone call:

“Jason, it’s Duane, Sallie and I are going for a polo lesson this weekend, why don’t you come along?”

“(long pause) Thanks for the thought, I think. But have you been drinking? I have never in my life ridden a horse. Quite frankly they scare me. I’m born and bred a city boy. And I can’t afford to play polo!”

“No you fool. A lesson only costs 40 pounds. If you get better you just rent a horse to play. We’re just having fun and you should give it a go. It’s not like we are going to dedicate our whole lives to this or spend any serious money on it.”

Now I wish that I had taken up that invitation. Instead I spent the next 5 years as Duane and Sallie Anne’s ‘ London friend’. I watched as they moved from London to a small house in the country. I watched, bemused, as they bought adjoining land and built stables and hired their first groom. I masked my fear when introduced to their new horses. I showed support from the side of a field as they played their first chukkas, and talked afterwards of the occasional ball they had hit but never of the many balls that they had ridden straight over. To horses were added Terence (my godson) and a dog called Ziggy Stardust. Terence I understood and bonded with. Horses, dogs, polo and the country life still perplexed me. And then came the new bigger house. And more horses. And land. And stables. And more groom’s and even their very own polo pro giving polo lessons on their top field. Further I could not deny the reality that my friends could not only now hit the ball, but were helping others to learn to do the same. And I admit that I became curious, but suppressed that feeling behind the absolute knowledge that polo was not something I could ever do. To be fair, each year Duane repeated his suggestion that I give it a try.

Sussex polo was born. In early 2003 Duane and Sallie sold their respective red automotive toys to kick start the new club fund. Duane came to me and (pretty much in the same breath) (a) requested (i.e. pleaded) to be insured to drive my red car, (b) told me that he

and Sallie had decided to give me some polo lessons for my birthday, (c) told me that they started in 4 weeks time (and I could borrow his boots) and (d) informed me that I had no choice in the matter, I might be an unfit, overweight, urban boy who had a pathological fear of horses but that I WAS GOING TO GIVE POLO A TRY WHETHER I LIKED IT OR NOT.

I cannot thank Duane enough for that, for it has changed my life. And I cannot thank Sallie Anne enough for creating from nothing (through stress, sleeplessness, vision and bloody-minded determination, believe me) the sort of polo club where a through and through city boy, hopelessly unprepared both culturally and (to be honest) physically, who is irrationally, but psychotically, scared of horses can be wholly comfortable and confident that his first steps into the polo world will be taken in the environment of warmth, friendship and encouragement that exudes from the management, the pros, the staff and the members of the club.

My first full playing season has been an adventure and has been blessed (but by no means made) by collecting a few winners’ trophies. I’m grounded enough to realise that the trophies that I won on the field have more to do with the people who I was lucky enough to be playing with (and let’s not forget luck, as well as an unfortunate and badly timed foul by my great friend Mr kwan Lo) than any contribution I myself made to the team. A big thank you to David Morley for (a) putting up with me and (b) teaching me the tactical side of the game rather than shouting at me!

But the trophy that means most to me is the one that was decided by the members of the club.. Thank you all for your votes (and I forgive those whose votes were directed elsewhere – there were so many who deserved recognition) that ended in me being honoured with the Newcomer of the Year trophy. Thank you to the professionals who taught me the game and believed in me. Thank you to Duane and Memo who found me my beautiful and perfect horses and quietly let me learn to love them. Thank you to my fabulous groom Michelle Uwins for looking after my beloved babies so brilliantly and for re-schooling them repeatedly to compensate for my failings as a horseman. But most of all thank you to all the members of the club for your encouragement, your advice, your tolerance (I know I can be obsessively competitive on the field sometimes), your patience (I’ll get better at the rules, I promise), your polite laughter when I commentate badly (or eccentrically), and for the warmth and the friendship that you’ve always demonstrated to me and to all the newcomers to the club and to polo. Last but not least, my thanks to Michael and Sophie Hanna for generously sponsoring the exquisite trophy.

I can’t wait for the next season to start!

Jason Bartfeld

Nov 2005