Ep. 154: When Lone Star Cowboys Took the Sport of Kings

<p>In This Episode<br />

• The origins of polo in sixth-century B.C. Persia — and why it was war training, not sport<br />

• How the British found the game in India, and the first formal English rules in 1875<br />

• James Gordon Bennett brings polo to America — and immediately sends to Texas for horses<br />

• Vanderbilts and Belmonts buying Hill Country mustangs<br />

• San Antonio as the polo pony capital of the United States by 1885<br />

• The Texas breeders: O. W. Cardwell of Junction, “Doc” Weir of Georgetown, Jay Floyd of Midland<br />

• What these horses actually were — Spanish mustang stock with Thoroughbred blood, long before the American Quarter Horse existed as a breed<br />

• Captain Glynn Turquand, the Balcones Ranch, and the Texas Polo Club at Boerne in 1883<br />

• The first public polo game in Texas at San Pedro Springs Park — and the collision that opened it<br />

• The Cowboys Polo Club challenge and the “Texas Championship” of July 14, 1883<br />

• Military polo at Fort Sam Houston, and why the usual 1896 Fort Riley date does not hold up<br />