Polo "Documentary"

SaddlePsych'D

SaddlePsych'D

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Just popped up in my FB feed.

https://fb.watch/w5Yxiyc8bQ

I think reality TV is probably more appropriate than documentary.

Executive produced by our second and third (?) least favourite royals (can I still call them royals, I'm not very good at Keeping Up with the Windsors).

Not sure I will be watching this one! It looks like another tone-deaf bit of horse related media that I am sure will do wonders for presenting horse sports to a wider audience. :rolleyes:
 
Oh dear, I can't say the trailer does much to grab my attention and curiosity to be honest. All looks a bit of upper echelon look at how seriously we take our playtime and how glamorous we all are sort of thing to me.

Can't see it helping the negative way equestrians are viewed by a growing percentage of the general public either.🤷
 
Looks like it'll be in the same format/approach as Drive to Survive or Break Point (both excellent sport series) so it won't be about the equestrian side, and I doubt that was their aim anyway.
 
I agree it looks like a similar format to Drive to survive or the Tour de France documentaries but with them the aggressive desire to win is at the hands of the machines they are driving/riding and their physical capabilities. That sort of competitiveness whilst riding a horse makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. It does make you wonder whether the horses welfare can be the most important consideration when “winning at all costs” is what they openly admit too.

I don’t think I will watch this either, not helped by the executive producers.
 
I learned to ride (age 61) by watching people play polo. I was struggling to canter. My lessons were in a small crowded indoor school and the only people I saw canter were small kids with their legs flaping up and down. At a memorable BHS meeting to which I was taken by a friend from the yard, the Princess Royal mentioned that one could watch adults canter in a polo match.
I went home and told OH I had met the Princess and she had said to watch polo. OH said the only Polo club he knew of was Cowdray Park.
When we phoned, the then manager at Cowdray Park said we would always be welcome there and so we drove straight down that weekend, not knowing it was out of season.

Watching high goal polo became our great pleasure every summer. Our parents' ill health meant we couldnt leave England and it became our habit. Our home from home. We would have a Pimms on arrival and take a picnic lunch,
Lock down and OH's failing eyesight has brought that to an end but year on year I build an MS Access database of the players and teams we had watched starting in 2003. It now amounts to 316 players.

I bought and read Jilly Cooper's book Polo but cant remember it at all.
 
SaddlePsych'D said:
Netflix. Definitely seems to fit the trash TV bill. I quite like some trash. Selling Sunset is a favourite 😁
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Real housewives of Beverly Hills or Orange County is mine. I like Made in Chelsea too and have watched selling sunset. I enjoy seeing what the rich people get up to 😂 it’s so far from my wee life 😂 but I think when animals are involved it takes the fun out of it a bit.
 
Peglo said:
Real housewives of Beverly Hills or Orange County is mine. I like Made in Chelsea too and have watched selling sunset. I enjoy seeing what the rich people get up to 😂 it’s so far from my wee life 😂 but I think when animals are involved it takes the fun out of it a bit.
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Ohhh i forgot about orange county!! Haven’t watched MiC in a while either… time to catch up
 
It would be boring if we all liked the same decor. I can look at something sleek, modern and shiny and minimal and think eurgh how cold and boring my husband on the other hand 🤪

All the battleship grey velour decor I saw when -is shopping 🤢 I know I'm a navy baby but still.
Edited 😂 thought I was in the property thread oops
 
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Skib said:
I learned to ride (age 61) by watching people play polo. I was struggling to canter. My lessons were in a small crowded indoor school and the only people I saw canter were small kids with their legs flaping up and down. At a memorable BHS meeting to which I was taken by a friend from the yard, the Princess Royal mentioned that one could watch adults canter in a polo match.
I went home and told OH I had met the Princess and she had said to watch polo. OH said the only Polo club he knew of was Cowdray Park.
When we phoned, the then manager at Cowdray Park said we would always be welcome there and so we drove straight down that weekend, not knowing it was out of season.

Watching high goal polo became our great pleasure every summer. Our parents' ill health meant we couldnt leave England and it became our habit. Our home from home. We would have a Pimms on arrival and take a picnic lunch,
Lock down and OH's failing eyesight has brought that to an end but year on year I build an MS Access database of the players and teams we had watched starting in 2003. It now amounts to 316 players.

I bought and read Jilly Cooper's book Polo but cant remember it at all.
Click to expand...

For a couple of years we belonged to a polo club - most of the members were exceeding wealthy and we went to some nice events in very posh houses, our little old car parked next to lots of expensive vehicles. We were at one house and someone said have you seen the Canalettos - fortunately (though not for the people who owned it) a Canaletto had been stolen recently and was in the news, so I knew what they were talking about otherwise I might have been tempted to ask what they tasted like.....
 
Cloball said:
It would be boring if we all liked the same decor. I can look at something sleek, modern and shiny and minimal and think eurgh how cold and boring my husband on the other hand 🤪

All the battleship grey velour decor I saw when -is shopping 🤢 I know I'm a navy baby but still.
Click to expand...
I'm not a fan of a lot of grey. A friend and her husband renovate houses,they do beautiful workmanship but everything including furniture to stage the property is white light grey and dark grey. It's horrid, so dull and clinical. In the future I'm sure it will be looked upon as avocado bathrooms are now. I'm a Laura Ashley and antiques girl myself. I love colour,brass,copper and clutter.
 
Well Jilly Cooper's Polo on TV!

(I seem to remember I didn't think a lot of the story at the time although there was one memorable line, which I suspect was a real quote - hence the long disclaimer at the front of the book.)

So you have got many very competitive men on horses, so it is going to be, well, competitive.

My daughter had a friend into Polo and I said, for heaven sake it is expensive enough to keep one horse and she wants to have a string. But I think she got round it by being a club member and hiring the horses, and she had a great time going all over the world to play. She said they are unbelievable to ride, you only have to think "spin" and they do and can shoot the rider off the side.

I knew someone who was a yard manager for a local polo yard, rather out in the sticks I thought, but they load up their mega size lorry and trundle off to matches all summer.

So yes, I can see the attraction, a glamourous lifestyle, fast play, and I think that men look very fetching wearing polo breeches (and I daresay they think the same of themselves).
 
Orangehorse said:
polo breeches
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I think you will find they play polo in white jeans rather than breeches? The Western game on ponies rather than on elephants seems to have been started by tea planters in India. We have a print dated 1872 from the Graphic newspaper showing officers playing "the new" game of polo.
 
I'm going to watch the polo film.

There are some good horse documentaries on Netflix.

One called Wild horse, Wild Ride about the mustangs in America. 100 people tame 100 mustangs in 100 days.

Another Mustang documentary about three trainers acclimatising mustangs to their new life in Europe is 'Aus Liebe zum Mustang'.

'My Heroes were Cowboys' about the chap that trained the Budweiser horses and training other horses for TV ads.

Fearless (about bull riders) featuring horses a plenty. Not sure how I feel about bull riding, but it's a fascinating look into the sport.

Golden Genes about the breeding of Dutch SJ horses.

'Stiller Kamerad' follows 3 soldiers with PTSD as they seek treatment on a horse farm in Brandenburg.

'Obstakels' about the Rio Olympics and horse triathlon riding.

And a film based on a true story, 'Walk, Ride, Rodeo', a rodeo star who has paraplegic vows to get back on her horse and compete again.

'Magic Der Wildpferde' about the efforts to preserve wild horses around the world.
 
cauda equina said:
No, but the Graun wasn't impressed
www.theguardian.com

Polo review – Prince Harry’s unintentionally hilarious profile of the world’s stupidest sport

Fixtures are chosen by popping confetti-filled balloons, obnoxiously privileged players weep in darkened rooms when they lose … this documentary about the royal’s hobby is like a spoof
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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Wonder if that author has ever been to Cowdray during the Gold Cup as it's not showing anything that doesn't happen in the UK during the season. There's remarkably little of Harry in it too.

Not sure any form of polo documentary would be overly popular though - it's the elite of the elite.
 
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