DRAWING THE POLO PONIES

I continued my plan to draw the horses at polo matches and horse shows this year and want to do at least two big paintings.
The first trip was on 18 June this year (2006)
Never been to polo before and I booked up well in advance, via the website of the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park. It was picnic weather and, not knowing what to expect, we dressed up in fairly posh gear. Because I was not sure of the route, we actually arrived early so had choice of spaces in car park, then I had slightly painful walk (wearing strappy sandals) to find where the matches were being played. I was carrying my bag with sketching stool, sketchbooks, pencils, crayons and the camera. We did not realize there are two fields, - or maybe more - and each is the size of 3 soccer pitches so at first I did not find the "Subsididary Final" being played on the farthest field. Was able to take some distance pictures and did quite a few sketches, rather difficult because the riders and 'ponies' move so fast. As a novice to the sport, it takes some time to work out that there are two umpires riding with the teams.
In the afternoon was the final of the Queen's Cub and it was altogether a more fast and furious match with world class players. Under some trees I noticed some men who appeared to be from South American, cooking whole lambs or pigs on rotating spits. There was a lot of Argentinians among the spectators. The comentators on both matches had the audience in stitches because of their witty and outrageous comments, both about the players and the girls in the audience. My favourite was the Australian one.
At the half time everybody walks on to the field and treads in the divots of turf, usually chatting and posing to have photos taken. There was a lot of dogs too.
The big drink was Pimms, and in the decorated tents the well-heeled eat and drank during the lunch break, with champagne flowing freely. We had our picnic in the car park along with families, children, dogs and the general hoi-poloi. (how do you spell this?)
So I have some of my material for the paintings and want to go again, to get some more material re the on-lookers - trouble is it is very pricey! On the way home I managed to take the wrong turn and ended up in Brentford, causing some rather harsh words addressed to the map reader! It took us two hours to get home.