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ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ASHTON FAMILY
The Ashton family at Markdale in
New South Wales, Australia.
Left to right: Geoff, Philip,
James Sr, Jim and Bob
D
uring the 1920s, in the space of eight
years, my father and his brothers
decided to learn polo. Little did they
know this new pastime would lead to
a legendary undertaking that would change
their lives forever.
My grandfather, James Ashton Sr, was
a self-made man and former MP. He secured
a good education for his four sons – Jim (my
father), Bob, Geoff and Philip – in Sydney
and, believing the future of Australia to be
on the sheep’s back, sent them to Queensland
to learn shearing. In the meantime, he
bought a 20,000-acre property, Markdale,
near Goulburn in New South Wales.
Keen to meet the locals, Jim and Bob
signed up to a polo club that was starting in
Goulburn. During the first game, my father
emerged as the most capable player, having
played a couple of matches previously. Once
the goals began to rack up, so too did the
boys’ taste for the game.
Once Geoff completed his training in
Queensland and Philip had left school, they
joined their brothers on the farm and formed
a polo team. During training sessions, they
would spend many hours honing their
soon-to-be-famous defence skills playing
two-on-two on the ground below the
homestead that’s still there today. At times
it was an isolated life, but their new venture
filled their weekends with black-tie events
and, of course, tournaments.
It was all about the win, for the boys: the
individual game was often sacrificed in the
interests of the team. Their ambition was to
become the best in Australia, and to do that
they had to beat the Ross team of Garangula
– a goal they accomplished in 1924.
In 1927, so the story goes, my grandfather
was in New York on a business trip, rubbing
shoulders with America’s most powerful,
including Theodore Roosevelt and Louis
Stoddard, president of the USPA. His sons
soon joined him, and after impressing the
locals with their knowledge of polo, began
a long-standing relationship with their
American counterparts. Before long, an
invitation was secured from Stoddard
himself for the Ashton brothers to play
polo in Long Island.
But, on returning home, their news was
met with derision from the Australian Polo
Council (APC), who believed that if a team
was going to Long Island, it should be chosen
by them. A nasty political fight broke out
and the APC ruled that it was to be settled
in favour of the team that won the 1929
Dudley Cup, Australia’s most prestigious
polo tournament. Determined as ever, the
Ashton boys competed and won – but the
governing body reneged on the deal, which
led to the invitation being withdrawn.
Philip suggested, in between mustering
sheep, they should consider a self-funded
trip to England. The risks were high and the
costs enormous, but my father and uncles
always loved a challenge, and they had my
grandfather’s full confidence. Such was his
belief in their ability, he bet the value of
Markdale in order to underwrite the trip,
on the condition that the boys sell their
