thumb|Playing polocrosse in [[New South Wales, Australia. No.1 Attack, Quirindi Club Final.]]

Polocrosse is a team sport that is a combination of polo and lacrosse. It is played outside, on a field (the pitch), on horseback. Each rider uses a cane or fiberglass stick to which is attached a racquet head with a loose, thread net, in which the ball is carried. The ball is made of sponge rubber and is approximately four inches across. The objective is to score goals by throwing the ball between the opposing team's goal posts.

International Polocrosse Council (IPC)

IPC was formed in Queensland, Australia on 21 June 1976.

Foundation countries

  1. Australia
  2. New Zealand
  3. Papua New Guinea
  4. Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
  5. South Africa

Members

Source:

IPC Full Member Countries

  1. Australia
  2. Ireland
  3. New Zealand
  4. South Africa
  5. United Kingdom
  6. USA
  7. Zambia
  8. Zimbabwe

Affiliate Member Countries

  1. Belgium
  2. Canada
  3. Germany
  4. Netherlands
  5. Norway
  6. France
  7. India
  8. Italy

Polocrosse World Cup

The Polocrosse World Cup occurs every four years by International Polocrosse Council. The first tournament was held in 2003 with Australia as the first world champions, and winning again in 2007. The next World Cup in 2011 was held in the United Kingdom with South Africa becoming the world champions and returned to home soil in 2015. The 2019 World Cup held in Australia was claimed by the Australian team.

  1. 2003 Polocrosse World Cup
  2. 2007 Polocrosse World Cup
  3. 2011 Polocrosse World Cup
  4. 2015 Polocrosse World Cup
  5. 2019 Polocrosse World Cup
  6. 2024 Polocrosse World Cup

Rules

Unlike polo, players are allowed only to play one horse, except in the case of injury. There is no restriction on the horse's height, although polocrosse horses are generally smaller than 16hh. Horses of all breeds play polocrosse and the Australian Stock Horse is the most popular breed playing in Australia. Stallions are not permitted to play.

A team consists of six players, divided into two sections of three who each play either 2, 3 or 4 chukkas of six to eight minutes, depending on the rules of the tournament, with the two sections from each team alternating on and off the field each chukka. A match comprises four, six or eight chukkas. The three players in each section play the position of a No. 1, attack, a No. 2, midfield (a combination of defence and offence), or a No. 3, defence.

The middle area is 100 yards long. The line separating the goal scoring and centre areas is called the penalty or thirty-yard line. Goal posts are eight feet apart. To score, the ball must be thrown from outside an 11-yard semicircle in front of the goal.

The exercise was played indoors with two riders a side and markers on the wall from which the ball bounced back into play. The goals were elongated basketball nets hung at each end of the arena. The sticks were old polo sticks that had the polo mallet removed and replaced with a squash racquet head. This had a shallow string net, which they used to scoop up the ball. The idea was to scoop up the ball, which was a little larger than a tennis ball, ride with it to the end of the arena and drop it into the net to score.

Realising the possibilities of this exercise as an outdoor horse sport, the couple returned to Australia with sticks, balls and rule books and sought the assistance of Alf Pitty, a well-known horseman and polo player.

After many hours of discussion, practising, much trial and error and revision of the rules, they finally came up with a new game using only one horse and able to be played by a person of any age. They called the new game polocrosse.

After all their careful designing, Pitty then helped to give the first recorded polocrosse demonstration at Ingleburn Sports Ground near Sydney in 1939. Interest and enthusiasm was so great that it was not long before all the club members were practising this new game. A short time later in 1939 a meeting was called at Ingleburn to form the first polocrosse club. At this meeting the first book of the rules of the game was established. Burradoo was the next polocrosse club to be established in Australia and is now the longest running club in Australia.

thumb|left|Polocrosse in New South Wales, Australia

In 1962 Walcha became the first club team to win the Lennon trophy at the Australian Red Cross championships at Maitland, when the four Goodwin brothers, Paul, Maurice, Noel and Brian together with Bob Gill and John Nixon played as the North New England No 1 team.

Polocrosse in South Africa started in the early 1950s. The first international tour of South Africa was in 1968 by Rhodesia and followed by the Australians in 1971. Polocrosse finally made it back to the United Kingdom in 1978, when it was introduced to two branches of the Pony Club in Surrey. It continued to be played at Pony Club level, with its popularity slowly growing. The arrival of polocrosse players from Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and South Africa in the UK in the early 1980s led to the establishment of polocrosse clubs outside of the Pony Club, and in 1985 the UK Polocrosse Association was formed. Polocrosse became an official Pony Club activity with its own championship at around the same time. Polocrosse is also played in Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe, United Kingdom, Zambia, Italy and South Africa.

Polocrosse in Ireland

In 1990 polocrosse came to Ireland. Brothers David and Ivor Young introduced polocrosse to Ireland in 1990 as an additional tourism attraction to their residential equestrian holiday business in County Wexford. David had just read an article on Polocrosse in a UK equestrian magazine. Interested to learn more about this game, the two brothers had an Australian coach, Bernie Uechtritz, at Horetown House some five weeks later. In the early stages, the game was only played at Horetown House, County Wexford, but it was not long before Brian McMahon of Rathcannon in County Limerick heard about this new game, and Limerick Polocrosse Club was the next club to be established. From here polocrosse expanded rapidly in Ireland, with several other clubs springing up, including Tipperary (based in Clonmel, County Tipperary), Carrickmines (based in South Dublin), Waterford (based in Tramore, County Waterford), Birr (Based in Birr, County Offaly), Cork (based in Middleton, County Cork) and three new recent additions: Silverspurs (based in South County Dublin), Tyrella (based in Tyrella, County Down) and Equus (based in South Dublin).

References

Further reading

  • Polocrosse Rules, Polocrosse Association of Australia, Griffin Press, Adelaide
  • Australian Encyclopedia, Australian Geographic, Terrey Hills, 1996
  • Polocrosse: Australian Made, Internationally Played, Sally Batton Boillotat, with contributions from John Kohnke, Joy Poole, Max Walters, photographs by Peter Solness, illustrations by Gavin O'Keefe 1990, Belcris Books, 328 pages, .
  • Polocrosse: A Practical Guide to Australia's Own Horse Sport, Amanda Choice, 1992, University of New England, 200 pages, .
  • "Polocrosse" in The Modern Encyclopædia of Australia and New Zealand, Stanley Horwitz, Victor S. Barnes, Lyall J. Moore, Ann Oxenham, 1964, 1199 pages, p. 810.
  • Polocrosse Rules & Information on the Game, Polocrosse Association of Australia Incorporated, 2008.
  • Polocrosse Association of South Africa
  • American Polocrosse Association
  • Polocrosse Association of Canada
  • Polocrosse Australia
  • Polocrosse Victoria
  • UK Polocrosse Association