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The umpiring of the UK 2019 summer season should be the model for
all countries to follow, comments Owen Rinehart
As a spectator of only quality polo now,
the games in the 2019 Queen’s Cup and
Gold Cup for the British Open were some
of the best I’ve seen, other than the
Argentine Triple Crown.
I think the reason for this was because the
umpires didn’t call many fouls – the idea of
calling a very strict game in the hopes that
players will foul less has never worked. It
causes players to ride for fouls and makes the
games terrible to watch because the umpires
blowwhistles for the player who is late to the
play, which is wrong in my opinion.
Stoppage is boring and non-polo players
don’t understand the call.The rules of polo
were made for safety and the games I watched
were safe. Calling only obvious or dangerous
fouls sped the games up and stopped players
riding for fouls, because they knew they were
going to be late for the next play if they did.The
result was perhaps the fastest 22-goal polo
played in a while,maybe ever.
The quickness and talent of the players
and the quality of the horses was great to see
and that is what will sell the sport going
forward. I’m not sure how the professional
players felt about the style of umpiring during
the season, but I hope they liked it.The aim
of all of the polo associations is to bring more
people to the game, either as players or
viewers, and this summer season in the UK
should be the model for all levels to follow.
If polo is played faster with fewer
interruptions, it is much easier to improve,
plus amateurs understand the game better
and are less afraid to make mistakes. If pros
are playing for fouls because the game is
being umpired that way, players become
frustrated, which leads to yellow flags, instant
replay and boring polo to watch and play.
The old way of using the third man was
much better, either he saw a foul or didn’t,
and a simple hand signal of yes or no solved
it. If you are driving down the freeway and the
cops are everywhere giving out tickets, the
flow of traffic slows down to a really sluggish
pace and becomes worse, because of
stop-start traffic. It’s no different in polo.
