Show READY FOR NEWPORT Polo Players Ready for the Next Meeting GAMES COME OFF NEXT MONTH fomethlnc About the Personality of the Players = Foxy Keene at the Head of the LIstS List-S eclal Correspondence SUNDAY HERALD t NEWPORT R L July 16 rf OW that the preliminary l pre-liminary bouts 1 j j I are settled at U j Rockaway West 7J bury Morristown and other country club centres they the-y f polo players of the entire country 1 1 coun-try are looking forward to the great r J series of games to be played in this city by the sea on the grounds of the Westchester Polo Club between the 17th and the 19th of next month One of these contests will decide the possession of the Newport cups for teams of four an event of special interest as it is played without handicap ana will be won by the strongest team in America If there is any misinformed individual who really thinks that the rich young men of the country are going to the dogs for lack of courage and physical vigor ho ought to see a few polo games It would do him good Polo is the rich mans game A poor man cant stand the expense of the ponies and the traveling The heirs of many millions meet and cavort and wheel and plunge and scuffle on the spongy turf of the polo ground Now and again one nf them is thrown in the heat of the turmoil but nobody minds that in the least If a pony steps on him the others console themselves them-selves by reflecting that the little beast doesnt weigh much and press on for the coveted goal The quick swinging of mallets mal-lets in a scrimmage the smashing of their long and slender handles the shock of men and ponies and hurry of hoofs make a spectacle rather more interesting than a baseball match Everybody knows that Theodore Roosevelt Roose-velt civil service commissioner and ex polo player and fox hunter broke his arm at a Long Island fence following the anise seed trail and that Stanley Mortimer amore a-more recent participant has only just recovered re-covered from a broken leg at the same rough sport Perhaps polo is less provocative provoca-tive of serious fractures than nufitlng though Dallett of the Essex County club has just been laid up for a month but more Ignoble knocks and bruises must certainlv be received Take the long season from June 8 to October 10 more than four months and in the almost continuous games of the different series a very large number of minor accidents are expected as a matter of course I remember very well a furious rally in the games > at the Meadow Brook clubs grounds when two out of the eight players Mr Cowden and Mr Beeckman were down llmofit at the same moment But however Hsi 0 > a A i S much these accidents might frighten the timid the polo players will probably live ty cl = c 7 y 1 + e yi l WIXTHIlOr RUTERFORD THOMAS HITCHCOCK ox WHITE wises ox BCCKSKIX I longer than dry goods clerks besides enjoying en-joying themselves much better while they do live Polo playing is a very exclusive sport The onlookers are always comparatively few and altogether select The American Polo association includes fifteen clubs probably ALL THAT EXIST IX THE COCXTRT How many individual members this may represent is hard to say some of the clubs being mach larger than others but it is certain that the number of active players is far below 500 They are much less than the fox hunters Fat and elderly gentlemen can follow the hounds frith a reasonable degree of circumspection circum-spection but they have no business in the polo field So the number of players is few but they make up for that fact by the display dis-play of a surprising amount of energy Of all the players Foxball Keene or Foxy as he is better known is the most daring and fertile of resource as well as the best known to the public Young Keene has made a tine record as a gentleman gentle-man jockey in steeple chases and is known on the racetrack as the owner of Tournament and other crack horses Keene is light and athletic In build a perfect per-fect devil on horseback for daring and can dispute a decision of the umpire referee they call him in polowith as much vigor as big Captain Anson of the Chicagos He is handicapped at ten goals in playing match games t > C 7 tu t 9i r 1 i c HERBERT OX PATCH Keene belongs to the Rockaway Polo club which is perhaps as strong an organization organi-zation as any in the country He is ably seconded in it by John F Cowden handicapped handi-capped at eight goals Jack Cheeper and William Rutherford with L Z Franke J S Steveas A C Tower and W L Montague as clever and aspiring seconds tI D u 1 < Ax < The Westchester club is distinctly inferior in-ferior to the Rockaway ITS CRACK PLATER is R L Beeckman of the old Knicker bocker stock A young player of the West chesters who is showing in surprisingly good form this year Is Mr C S Bates I i Theodore A Havemeyer jr son of the I great Sugar Trust magnate is another i crack player and E C Potter usually makes with these a team of four who play well together August Belmont of the Meadow brooks is another crack officially handicapped handi-capped at six goals Old August Belmont had two sons one went in for politics the other for sport Both were cases of inheritence as Mr Belmont sr was active in both political campaigns and on the turf T Hitchcock handicapped at eight goals is another of the Meadowbrook team O W Bird a director di-rector of the National association handicapped handi-capped at six goals is the third and R D Winthrop the fourth Playing without handicaps the RocJtaway team headed by Keene and Cowden is probably the best in the country Two other experts about New York are N P Farr of the Essex club and L Turnure jr of Rockaway Philadelphia Phila-delphia looks with pride upon H C Groom and P McKean among others THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTIUBCTIOX OF POLO is not very wide The York vicinity has besides the three which have been named the Oyster Bay Polo club the Es sex County N J Polo club the Morns County N J Country club and the Tuxedo Tux-edo club all of which were founded by New York men at their different summer homes Philadelphia has a country club named by its honorable name with a suburban retreat Boston has the Hiphatn and Harvard clubs and the incredibly named Myopia that really is its title though it is usually difficult to convince people of the fact They always think it is a poor joke on the Bostonian spectacles i kiVr FOX ALL KEHXE OX l JOHX COXDEX OX wises I CLOVER II I I These are the clubs which will contest here at Newport for the Westchester Polo club cups handicap and the Newport cups without handicap If preponderance of numbers goes for anything some of the New Yorker ought to win the honors of the coming meet After the Newport games the polo players will go to the Myopia grounds near Boston in early September and to the Highams grounds in the middle of the month The Philadelphia Philadel-phia county club will have its games the last ten days of September The last series of matches will be played on the Morris county grounds in early October but the Meadowbrook clubss autumn cup will be fought for and awarded even later at a date not yet definitely fixed Play began in June practice prac-tice much earlier The country season In America Is certainly exceeding in length It is not kBOwn that there was any such thing In colonial times but of late it has extended very rapidly from two months to t iiiiiIii sx wth those who can afford it The bus ness cf breeding and selling POLO POSIES has developed with the game The points I of a polo pony are so different from tux se required of any other species of animal that ho is a kind apart Speed is not required but the pony must be quiet at turning Size is a disadvantage dis-advantage as it puts the rider farther from the ball Besides almost any man would rather have a little horse fall on his leg than a big one The pony must be sagacious perfectly docile capable of enjoying the game on his own account All these qualifications are combined in tne best panic l who readily sell at from 300 to J700 A crack player must have more than one to be sure of a mount always Polo is in no great danger of becoming I the national game for reasons obvious But for the development and exhibition of I pluck there is no sport which surpasses it 1 have a very high appreciation of the pluck of the young xuen who engage in it and quite agree with the lovers of the game in the belief that it is better for young men of leisure to chase each other about a polo Held whackinga ball with along 1 I a-long handled mallet than to pursue the more usual amusements oC dudes and Johnnies when in town Of course polo came to us from England but England sends us nothing but blessincs when we borrow from her thousand years of leisure ac out game or two Indeed if one considers con-siders base ball a direct descendant of the English rounders America has had time so far to develop no original athletic exercise exer-cise whatever except chewing tobacco and that might well be dispensed with DAVID WECQSLEIU |