Opposite, from left:
Alan Scherer, Taio
Novillo Astrada, Bill Ylvisaker, twin
brothers Peter and Steve.
This page, left:
Steve and Stevie Jr umpiring on
a horse called Nipper in 1992.
Below:
The Orthwein family at Hall of Fame
2011, from left, Stevie Jr, Ginny, Danny,
Steve and Robert
MUSEUM OF POLO
balk, kick, jump on the road, off the road, stop, jump ahead. These
were the type of horses that most people in polo have never ridden.
Not racetrack broke, but young thoroughbreds that had minimal
halter breaking or handling, and if they had more than 10 rides on
them in their life I would be surprised.
Stevie was middle-aged then, and when I asked him why he
didn’t get someone to put some miles on them until they lined out,
he told me he enjoyed it, and that afternoon in the cold windy rain
he rode at least four more of them. That, more than anything, was
what impressed me about the man’s energy and passion for horses.
He was as tough as they come and knew horses from the ground up,
and he could play horses that other players could not, because he
was such a strong rider.
If he hit the ground, he would shake it off, get back on and
continue in that same wide-open style that he was known for. I’ve
known saddle bronc riders and college football players that would
be envious of how tough Stevie was. In addition to homebred horses,
he bought horses from the sale ring that other people gave up on and
trained them to become useful polo ponies. At the height of it, Stevie
owned between 100 and 150 horses.
After a fall on a horse last year, he was confined to a wheelchair, but
it didn’t prevent him from staying in the game. A devout fan of the
sport and a proud father to the last, he enjoyed watching his sons’
games and the horses that he had raised over the years.
This March, I inquired about Stevie, who had recently been
hospitalised and Ginny, his wife, pointed to the field speaker where
she had put her phone with an open line to the hospital so he could
listen to the commentary of his son Stevie Jr’s game. He passed away
at home in his sleep on 11 March. Appropriately, the celebration of
Stephen August Orthwein’s life was in the facility in which he was
enshrined, and on Saturday 17 March, several hundred flooded into
the National Polo Hall of Fame to say goodbye to a kind-hearted soul
with a huge engine that gave so much to the sport of polo.
To his wife Ginny, his sons Stevie Jr, Robert, Danny and Peter,
and the rest of his family, my deepest condolences.
Sam Morton is an author of three books on horsemen; The Winged Spur,
Land of the Horse and Where the Rivers Run North
follow @hurlinghampolo
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