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DAVID LOMINSKA/POLOGRAPHICS.COM, SNOOPY PRODUCTIONS
‘I picked her for the team because she was
the best 4-goal player I could find, and she
was underrated,’ explains Adolfo Cambiaso
(10) on why he chose the Californian to play
in the 2000 US Open Championship with
Tim Gannon’s Outback team. After losing
their opening game, team captain Gannon (1)
and Dale Schwetz (5) were replaced by Phil
Heatley (2), and Sunny Hale (4).
‘The chemistry of the team just wasn’t
right before,’ says Gannon. ‘We brought her
in with Phil to play a game in the Gold Cup
a week earlier and it seemed to click. She
had high-goal experience and Adolfo
thought we could win with the combination.’
The new line-up including Hale,
Cambiaso, Lolo Catsagnola and Heatley
went on to win the next five games,
including the 11-8 final over Everglades
(Skeeter Johnston, Owen Rinehart, Tomás
Fernández Llorente and Tommy Biddle).
‘She plays with the head of a 10-goaler,’ said
Cambiaso at the time. ‘She knows the game.’
‘She was my coach,’ explains Heatley.
‘At the end of the day, she and I would be
viewing films and reviewing the horses
of opposing teams.’
After becoming the first woman to win
the US Open Championship in 2000, Hale’s
handicap was raised to 5-goals, an accolade
shared with only one other female player,
England’s Claire Tomlinson, and her
achievements didn’t end there.
Hale grew up on a farm surrounded
by horses and followed in the footsteps
of her mother, Sue Sally Hale – who became
the first female playing member of the US
Polo Association in 1972. But Hale had
higher aspirations and worked passionately
to achieve them.
It is said the highest accomplishment an
athlete can achieve is to be recognised by
their peers, and Hale’s success was certainly
acknowledged in the polo world – she was
awarded the Polo Excellence Award as the
top woman player an unprecedented seven
times. As her skills increased, so too did the
level of play at which she competed. And
as a few of the more accomplished players
recognised her talent, high-goal
opportunities began opening up for her.
But individual accomplishments weren’t
the driving force for Hale. In an effort to
help highlight the talent and skills of other
female players, in 2005 she created the
Women’s Championship Tournament (WCT)
featuring a series of regional competitions
that culminated in a national final. Not
only was polo promoted for female players
but women became the USPA’s fastest
growing demographic, accounting for nearly
40 per cent of the association’s membership.
So popular was the WCT that Hale took
it internationally with tournaments in
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the
United Arab Emirates, which was hosted
by Dubai’s royal family. Hale not only
promoted these tournaments, she competed
in them. Ultimately, the WCT became the
largest women’s polo league in the world.
Hale also recognised the need for
a central repository where information
on the breeding and pedigree of polo ponies
could be kept. In 2006, she founded the
American Polo Horse Association. Annual
APHA horse shows were organised with
Cambiaso volunteering to be a judge
alongside Dale Smicklas and Mara Hagan.
‘She was a force of nature,’ said longtime
friend and former 8-goaler Smicklas, who
served as Hale’s WCT Commissioner; his
wife Joanne was her constant companion
and right-hand girl.
In 2013, Hale developed a new women’s
polo handicapping system and has to be
credited for the surge in female membership
in the USPA. Her influence was felt
Opposite:
Hale playing for
New Bridge.
This page,
from left:
Hale, Stephan
Kwiatkowski, Eduardo
Heguy, Nachi Heguy,
Donald Trump, Gale
Brophy, Henryk
Kwiatkowski and
Marla Maples in 1995
