DC is known for extensive league sports activities like soccer and basketball, but not as plenty for its niche leagues or teams. But times are converting with more fabulous particular sports activities stoning up in and across the District, like rugby and polo. When it involves the latter, Congressional Polo Club’s Seema Sharma says its inclusivity sets the sport aside.
“Everyone needs to be part of this,” she says of polo. “We want each person to experience as they belong.”
Sharma, the club’s director of operations, has visible the fields in Poolesville, Maryland go through some distinctive cycles of management to stay applicable the various developing range of sports activities services in the DMV. This summer marks the first season of the DC Polo Society, a series of eventful Sundays on the club which includes Funbrella on July 28.
“The imaginative and prescient behind DC Polo Society is to create a business enterprise that welcomes people inside [and outside of] the polo community to come back collectively within one putting,” she maintains.
Sharma observed polo via her children. In Sharma’s case, it became their family dedication as her husband Rajeev is the acting director at the membership and shares everyday duties with her. The couple additionally shares the goal of hitting a selected demographic: young specialists.
“We want to make this sport greater famous and greater every day,” she says. “Millenials are key. Many have memories of driving [horses] and going to farms as children. You start to paintings and lifestyles will become stressful, and this notion is made that there is either no polo facility close to DC or it is too difficult to get to.”
With the DC Polo Society, these trepidations are ultimately unfaithful; the Sir Bernard Law County-based club is close to the metropolis and gives the entirety vital to take part which includes constitution bus options.
As for the sport itself, when the majority consider polo they probably imagine huge hats and high priced bubbly – however that’s now not continually the case. Spectators can anticipate experiencing a low-key day inside the you. S. A . Where they will be surrounded via three grassy fields and a beautiful view of the sky.
“Being there is a first-rate manner to escape from the aggravating daily of the metropolis,” Sharma says of the membership, placing a heavy emphasis on her choice for human beings to come back to a suit and have a reprieve from their busy day by day lives.
The attraction of a day away from traffic and town life isn’t the only pull Sharma promotes. Athletes like expert polo player Nico Eurnekian offer high-quality entertainment in their very own proper, playing the game at an impeccably high stage.
“I changed into actually born with a polo mallet in my hand, and I had been gambling ever since then,” Eurnekian, Congressional Polo Club’s very very own seasoned, says.
Every polo club has a membership pro, in any other case known as the anchor of the crew. Usually, they had been playing or concerned in the sport for the long term; as a result, they have the most enjoyable and might assist different players, which enhances the credibility of the membership. This creates a link among the club and community – especially with education applications for members.
Eurnekian grew up on a farm in Argentina surrounded by horses and fields, so polo becomes a natural suit.
“There is something very particular approximately polo wherein while you get into it, it’s far tough to get out of it,” he says.
He additionally notes that once spectators come to look at an in shape, all they see is the speed and the stainless polo shirts and white pants. In subtle ways, there is so much higher that goes into attending to that point, inclusive of the work in growing a courting among the player and the pony.
“They ought to see how crucial the interaction between the animal and the person [is], the connection [being built] within the midst of the sport.”
So, why have to you attend a polo healthy? According to Sharma, there are three things you ought to hold in thoughts: the splendor of polo, a day out inside the united states together with your family and buddies, and the experience of something new. On top of that, this represents a possibility to satisfy new people, so what are you watching for? Climb on that horse.
