polo painting Print

polo painting by naeem rind Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports.[9] The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ball through the opposing team's goal. Each team has four mounted riders, and the game usually lasts one to two hours, divided into periods called chukkas or "chukkers". Polo has been called "the sport of kings",[10] and has become a spectator sport for equestrians and high society, often supported by sponsorship. The progenitor of Polo and its variants existed from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD, as an equestrian game played by the nomadic Iranian and Turkic peoples.[4] In Persia, where the sport evolved and developed, it was at first a training game for cavalry units, usually the royal guard or other elite troops.[5] It is now popular around the world, with well over 100 member countries in the Federation of International Polo, played professionally in 16 countries, and was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1936.