ANOTHER SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE POLO MATCHES, INDIO, CA

Sun, Mar. 13 - Since we are back in Palm Springs, we wanted to go to another Polo Match at the Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA. This is funny! I Googled "Polo Match, Indio, CA" to make certain they were still having Polo Matches on Sunday and to check the times. Right there on the first page of the Google Search List was our BLOG -- HIGHWAY RUNNER!! I clicked on it and up came our Blog at the article I had written about going to the Polo Match a couple of months ago!! HIGHWAY RUNNER made the big time again!!!

We picked up Pam and Joe at their new house late Sunday morning and headed for the Tack Room Cafe for lunch before the polo matches. The weather was beautiful so we opted to dine on the patio.

After lunch we drove the short distance to the matches. This time they were playing on a different field, so things were set up differently with tailgate parking along the dirt road. There was no space available in that area so Ken convinced the Parking Attendants that we had eaten at the Tack Room and THEY said we could park on the other side (VIP Parking for Box Seats)! We drove to the far side and watched the remainder of the 12:00 match. Ken and I soon discovered we had forgotten everything we had learned about Polo at our first outting!! But
our memory gradually came back!

Some of the action!

After the first match, spectators were invited to "Stomp the Divets" to get the field ready for the second match. Here are Joe and Ken stomping!!

Now we are ready for the 2:00 PM Match!

Before the match started, there was a parade.

Some more action.

Near the end of the match, there was an accident across the field from us! Players were racing down the field when suddenly a player just tumbled off his horse. I saw him fall!! But I could not see what caused him to fall. He lay still on the ground until the medical team came to help him. (He's sitting on the ground in front of the cart.)

AND, only a few plays before that accident, a player at our end of the field scored a goal. However, his horse could not stop and ran between the goal posts. I think that's a penalty. But not only did he run between the goal posts, he hit one of the posts and knocked it down!! That caused the horse to trip and the rider tumbled head over heel over the horse's head!!! The rider promptly jumped up and raised his arms to show he was OK; he grabbed the horse and went back on the field, ready to play again!! Anyway, the goal did not count!!

This picture is not of the accident but this is a good picture of the goal posts. They are not heavy; they are plastic tubes that fit over a stake driven into the ground. So it really did not injure the horse when he it it.

It was another fun day at the Polo Matches!! And it's FREE!! (Plus the cost of lunch at the Tack Room).