Steve Thompson’s life as a polo coach

You got into coaching when you were still in England, didn’t you?

So you went with your heart?

Yes, I went from megabucks to mega-poverty living in a caravan working as a polo groom. I’d ridden as a child so I was quite good with horses, and I basically worked my way up. I went on to train polo ponies and ended up in Australia and New Zealand, learning on all manner of psychopathic horses. I played quite a lot but I could see there were too many brilliant Argentinean players half my age. Eventually I moved here and founded the academy in 2005.

What’s a typical day?

We start about 6am and there’s teaching until 10am, and then in the afternoon more teaching from 3pm to 6 or 7pm.

Who is your typical customer?

Well, it’s changed – it used to be lots of rich Russians and yuppie types but these days it’s literally anyone. We have people from 17 up to 72, some of whom can afford mega-bucks and some who can spare just Dh500 a month – there’s no typical customer.

What’s the attraction of learning polo?

You get a massive sense of achievement. We do a lot of corporate days where people turn up having been told it’s a polo day and they arrive in dresses and high heels – they can’t believe they’ve been signed up to play rather than watch. The horses are very well trained and obedient, so we kit people out and they get on the horse and it’s like having a go on a furry jet ski. They don’t dart off, you don’t need to be able to ride; you’re just balancing, and then we give you a stick and a ball and you marry it all together.

It can’t be that easy!

People arrive rather intimidated and can’t believe it when they’re riding a horse 15 minutes later. It’s all about balance and technique and the horse’s training really: you’re not really learning to ride, but you have a good time, have a game, and when you leave you can say you’ve done it.

What do people struggle with?

Resisting their instincts. Successfully hitting the ball is pure physics, but just like when newcomers try golf, they tend to want to hit the ball as hard as they can. It’s more about swinging a pendulum whereas amateurs seem to want to try to kill the ball.

What was your most memorable day?

Sky TV had sent tennis champion Rafael Nadal for a lesson and the poor guy was petrified: it took us about an hour and a half just to get him on the horse. When you have a horse standing around for 10 minutes it nods off, and when it’s standing around for 90 minutes it goes into a deep sleep. So Nadal got on and there were zeds coming out of his horse, and I said, ‘Listen, this is the safest thing you’ll ever do.’ With that I turned my horse, it tripped on a safety board, went down, rolled me into a huge pile of manure and landed on top of me. Nadal was out of there in a flash!

Whoops! If you were picking team mates, would you pick a good player on a bad horse or a good horse with a bad player?

I’d go for the good player. If you take a golf buggy into a team of Ferraris and it’s got a skilled driver, he’s going to tactfully manoeuvre himself into position for when the right moment arrives. A bad player on a good horse might just mean someone going super-fast but in the wrong direction.

Have you ever had a horse so hopeless it’s untrainable?

No. Even if you get some old carthorse that’s been bred to be a carthorse you can train it to play polo – but you won’t win. Other horses are athletically perfect but they get upset when they’re not allowed to run off with their mates in the middle of a game, so they don’t make it mentally.

So what’s the going rate for a good one?

Between $20,000 (Dh73,400) and $40,000 for a good, well-trained polo pony, plus about $10,000-15,000 to fly it in.

Blimey! Isn’t there a cheaper way to do it?

Most polo coaches started off training racehorses, so they go to the track and have a look at what’s coming in fourth or fifth. Then they go to the sales and often find a syndicate of guys who are so hacked off that their horse keeps coming last that they’re happy to get rid of it. We hover around like vultures picking up horses for $1,500 or so and after a year of training they’re good polo ponies.