Playing Polocrosse Abroad

Taking a gap year between school and university has never been more popular, and for any keen player wanting to travel, experience different horses and new styles of play as well as meeting people and improving their polocrosse then a season abroad is the obvious choice. Izzy Baker Cresswell shares her experiences and some tips on how to get there and get the most out of it.

Playing Bam Bam in the A grade

This December, I will be leaving for my fourth trip to the Southern Hemisphere to be an ‘import’ for a family. However, this trip will be very different to the first time I stepped onto a plane heading to Perth, Western Australia in 2016 for the beginning of my three seasons of international polocrosse. I was straight out of sixth form with vague thoughts of university the following year (look how well that went!) but first, I was desperate to take up our neighbour and my original playing influence, Lucy Shell (now Lyster) on her incredibly generous offer of a season with her family in WA from August until November. The agreement was that I would be in charge of exercising and caring for their three playing mares everyday as well as any odd jobs and babysitting required in return for a room, food and the opportunity to play a horse every weekend.

This is a pretty standard deal for imports – don’t expect to go abroad and be paid a fortune as that’s not what it is about. You have to be ready to do whatever task is set to you! It is definitely a learning curve for ‘just getting on with it’. You may be told to herd cattle, stick and ball a strange horse, change nappies or cook supper for four people. These were a handful of the jobs I came to expect and eventually grasp, building skills which have have made me a little more capable.

Raindrop, one of the best polo and polocrosse horses in Western Australia

Two stand-out entertaining moments for me came in the first couple of weeks. After visiting (Lucy’s husband) Ralph’s cousins down the road, I was asked to drive his work lorry home that night whilst he drove the horse truck. We can laugh about it now but as a newly qualified driver (of an old Ford Fiesta and nothing else), I got hopelessly lost after being unable to get the truck into first gear and drove aimlessly around in the dark (sailing straight through all the junctions) until a search party was sent into the rain to find me. Relieved to have survived, a couple of days later I was handed a pair of clippers and, to my horror, told if I wanted to take their best horse to the Walkaway tournament that weekend, I had to give her a full clip… I had barely hogged a horse before. The result was two hours sweating it out until poor Judy Glover looking like she had gone through a combine harvester. Fortunately, Ralph was kind enough to tell me I had made a good effort and that I could go up on the Thursday with his cousin Salli Galvin and her seven horses.

Walkaway ‘carnival’ is held six hours north of where I was staying, in a small town outside the city of Geraldton, famous for being so windy that the trees grow bent over along the ground. There are many differences between UK and Australian polocrosse: there are no overarms allowed, they often have games under lights, there are two tournaments per weekend and in big states such as NSW grades go from A to F plus Women’s, Men’s and Mixed contests to accommodate all the teams. There is also only one person to do both time and scoring rather than three sitting at the table, and everybody is very polite, riding out at the beginning of each game to introduce themselves.

I was lucky enough to be immediately welcomed into the Foothills club and playing in their D and C grade team saw us notch up 5/6 wins. Miraculously, I even managed to not hinder Judy so much that at Kojunup carnival she won the Champion Pony prize. It was my first ever and I was totally overwhelmed, making a speech thanking Lucy and Ralph profusely for lending such a lovely horse… I left out the fact only 24 hours before I had been on the brink of meltdown after Judy Glover had splattered my clean white jeans with diarrhoea as I plaited her tail at 7:45am before our game. She holds a special place in my heart for being the first horse I rode, played and won a Best Horse on in Australia, despite her constantly unimpressed face and disinterested attitude.

The horses are an enormous part of the job. I have had the honour of riding some unbelievable ones (not always well) and it has improved my riding and ability to adjust to different horses no end. I need at least one skill to excel at so I’m banking on this. If you’re like me and love working with any horse then finding somewhere with plenty to keep you busy is important. Learning how to handle youngsters, riding and leading as many as you can hold onto and paying attention to every word these horsemen and women have to say are all parts of the learning process. After moving from the Lyster’s farm following the polocrosse season, I had my first taste of all of this nearby with Luke and Liz Reid’s polo team at Spring Farm.

Grooming at Polo in the City

After a few days of fan-girling over the World Cup player sitting in the living room and offering to stick and ball with me, I realised polo grooming was by far one of the most intense jobs I had ever done. I was determined not to let Luke and his stunning string of horses down; polo teaches you to be decisive, calm and efficient whilst also being thorough, skills I desperately needed. I can’t have been too diabolical as they invited me back for both the 2018/19 season and the 2020 season to come for which I am very grateful, and Spring Farm is now my second home.

Working as hard as you can for your hosts is always appreciated. If you think a job needs doing then do it, if they ask you to do something then you crack on because the rewards of learning outweigh how tired you will feel in the evenings. Making an effort to get to know as many people as possible is also crucial – polocrosse is a small community so the more friends you have, the more opportunities arise. My trip to the 2019 World Cup with Aussie team member Suzette Thomas was like nothing I had ever experienced before. We travelled over 4,000km with eight horses, stopping to play competitively in Victoria and NSW before arriving in Warwick for the big show. If I hadn’t bitten the bullet and gone to WA three years before I would never have ended up on that trip of lifetime. It was hard work and not always easy but it was so worth it.

View from the office in New Zealand

New Zealand in 2017 was yet another unbelievable season in a different way. The polocrosse is much more like the UK with small clubs, big parties and the friendliest, most welcoming people you can imagine. Stunning scenery, socialising and ten weeks of back-to-back competition made for an epic four months. From the Marshall’s gorgeous haven in Wanganui to one of the biggest farms on North Island with the Kereopas, in typical, boring horse girl fashion I was immediately drawn to the horses I worked and played. None more so however than Bam Bam, belonging to Tony Maclean and who I would have packed into my suitcase if he had taken his eye off her for a second. I had my first experience of A grade on her and we were partners in the first big team I managed to wangle my way onto at the Roke & Rockwood championship for Kaiteke club. Any horse that can make me look good enough to fill in at that level must have been special, and the photos of her on my wall remind me of that everyday. I was able to see world famous scenery and meet the best people; anyone who wants a good time partying and playing as many tournaments as you can then New Zealand is for you.

Amazing who you bump into on the other side of the world…

This time around, I am flying back to Western Australia for the opportunity to groom for Luke during the polo season as well fitting in as much polocrosse training as possible before our UK season. I have been very lucky with the people I have worked for and in the future, I would love to host imports myself. Even if you just do one gap year (this is in no way supposed to encourage you not to go to University!), you can get so much out of it. If anyone is interested in finding a place in Australia or New Zealand then I am more than happy to help! You need to be ready to work hard, be good company, dedicated to the horses and become part of a family, but you won’t regret it!