From the sidelines, the moment one of the riders fell off her horse during Sunday’s polo match, hosted by Sugarbush Polo Club at Amdez Farm on Shelburne Hinesburg Road, was terrifying.
In one glance, she was upright on her saddle cantering alongside the group as they chased down then ball. In the next, she was toppling to the ground, her stirrup breaking off from the saddle. The horse’s feet danced over her body. From far away, it was impossible to see where the steps landed.
Then the player rolled up. She dusted off her shirt, went to go change out her saddle and, not so metaphorically, got back on the horse.
“It’s a bit of a rough sport for players and for horses, but I think everybody that’s on the field is just so into it that it’s fun to kind of feel like you’re accomplishing a goal together,” Alex Morris, one of the owners of Amdez Farm, which offers polo and riding lessons said.
Morris, whose love for the game is palpable as she describes the way the horses and team work together to navigate the field, is one of the driving forces behind the weekly matches.
Her parents, Eric and Deborah Morris, bought the land that used to be the Bushey farm in the late 90s, conserving 190 acres through Vermont Land Trust and continuing to partner with a local farmer to hay their fields.
Around 2014, the Sugarbush Polo Club, which has been active in the state since in the 1960s, approached the couple about allowing them to set up a polo field on their land. The field went in, right off Shelburne Hinesburg Road, and they’ve been playing there ever since.
At the time, Alex Morris was still young, barely a teenager. While she had ridden horses and even competed in dressage events, polo was something new to her when the club started playing on her parents’ land, but she fell in love with it.
“They had a pro come in, and he actually broke his leg,” Morris said, adding that after the injury he needed help running lessons. “So, I got into it through that, and I was helping him work horses and play polo. It was like, I’ve never ridden horses like this before.”
Polo is looser than other kinds of riding, more akin to a western rodeo than the precision of a dressage horse dancing through an arena. On Sunday, the riders leaned across their horses, swinging down with their mallets to send the ball across the field, pivoting as gameplay changed direction.
Over the years, after boarding horses, teaching some lessons and falling in love with another polo player, Morris opened the polo school and Amdez Farm. She teaches riding lessons and polo, making the game accessible to someone who may have never ridden horse before. For many polo players, they might need to own four horses, or a farm and a trailer to move them in — players change out horses after each period, called a chukker.
“That’s a huge barrier to entry, right? So here people can board or, I mean, just to start out, people just come and take riding lessons,” Morris said, adding that, during lessons, people might try out hitting a ball around, testing out if they like it.
Eric Morris, her father, was one of the first people Morris got into polo. He was one of the players at Sunday’s game, playing the number two position — an offensive player largely responsible for scoring. Until about three years ago when his daughter opened the farm, he hadn’t really ridden horses, and definitely hadn’t played polo. Like his daughter, the game has now become part of his life.
“Golf is for suckers,” Morris said, cracking a smile. “We do the same thing, but we do it while we’re riding a horse.”
Alex Morris said watching people she’s had in lessons feel comfortable enough to start playing the Sunday games is satisfying. The line, she said, of whether someone can play is simply safety. Once someone can safely navigate their horse around the field, they’re good to go.
“The old guard of the club is getting older, so we’re trying to kind of build it back up and get some younger participants in and people that are interested. So, I guess my message would be that it’s more accessible than you think,” Morris said. “And it’s pretty fun.”
The games on Shelburne Hinesburg Road are casual, riders frequently come up to spectators, who are sitting by the trunks of their cars lining the field. At the end of each game, the riders pass by a line of those same spectators, shaking hands with everyone. They hold potlucks and awards, share beers after they’ve all dismounted their ponies.
Sitting in a folding chair after the game, sharing a Modelo with teammates, for Morris, the community, as much as the joy of the game, is the draw.