Despite having lived on the North Shore for 8+ years now, I had never made it to the local-ish polo country club. That all changed this past weekend when some friends put a group together and invited us along. I learned some things:

Polo is a sport designed for the top 0.0001%. If you're able to afford the four to six horses you personally need to have in order to play the game, you are most likely managing a hedge fund in Boston during the work week.
Polo provided an excellent opportunity to throw the word "plebeians" around in normal conversation.
Polo has given me an excuse to go find myself the perfect fascinator.

I couldn't tell you any of the rules, but the point of the game is that there are four players on each side who all try to hit the ball through two goal posts while on horseback. If you understand that much, watching polo is an enjoyable experience.

Yes, Myopia Polo is the real name of the place, and yes, it was named after nearsightedness.

While the wise among us fit right in with the bourgeoisie throngs, SOME of us (who, me?) didn't even try and played papparazzi instead.

I'm secretly hoping that if I spend enough time around the polo fields, I'll learn the ways of the highest echelon of society so that I can learn how to be supremely classy like Kate Middleton, but for now I'm still the one eating ice cream while everyone else drinks chilled white wine.

This guy seems to have pulled off the classy vibe without even trying though, so maybe I can just learn from him.

Overall, I'd highly recommend going to see a match! It isn't free to drive and park, but someone among our group just walked in and didn't get charged. I'm not sure that's legal, but it's certainly possible. There were a number of kids present, and all of them really liked watching the horses, and because it's easy to tell when someone scores, it was fun for them to get into the sporting aspect of it as well. Games are at 3:00 on Sunday afternoons, and halfway through the event, you get to help the players out by stomping the divots back into the ground. It's either a fun community participation factor or free mass labor - your choice!

As a bonus, you get to hang out with folks like this guy:

But if you ask me, the horses are the stars of the show. Cheerio!

Woodstock Writings