I course designed the Thailand Championships at Thai Polo & Equestrian Club at the start of May. It was the sixth time in sixteen years that I have been given the honour of designing this championship. While general standards have improved in that time, particularly the quality of horses, the quality of riding is not much better than back then.
The Thailand Championships 1.30 m class was built as an easy 1.15 - 1.20 m track on the first day, and an easy 1.25 m track with two 1.30 m fences the next day. Otherwise, the field, small as it was with just seven starters, would not have survived. The Thai riders need lots of good help, something that is quite apparently in short supply in Thailand.
Perhaps this is so because most of the Thai trainers today have come mainly from a generation that wasn’t well educated as riders themselves. Malaysia, with the Malaysian Equine Council’s adoption of the Equestrian Federation of Australia’s National Coaching Accreditation Scheme back in the mid-nineties, has a much firmer foundation. Malaysian riders are generally better educated as beginners and novices, therefore are better equipped to choose their discipline of specialisation later on.
Despite a lovely 300 m x 150 m derby arena and warm-up area at the Thai Polo & Equestrian Club. I was asked to build my courses in a 80 x 40 m roped off arena in the center of it. It was just plain dumb because there was so much space and no need to limit it. The arena looked like a postage stamp on a large envelope. That it took quite a bit of convincing on my part to enlarge it to 95 x 60 m to bring it closer to the audience tells you much about their administrative officials. And I am told that the person who set the postage stamp size and didn’t want to change it is a course designer herself!
The Thailand Championships were held in four disciplines: Dressage - Prix St George, Jumping 1.30 m, Eventing - Novice and Endurance - 80 km. While touting proudly a new record of 29 entered clubs, it had very few entries in most classes. Moon was the only entrant in the Prix St George. In the jumping, I was asked to build a two round Teams class at 1.05 m when there was just one team entered! Guess what? They won!!
In contrast to that I have returned to Malaysia and am participating in two back-to-back polo tournaments. The RMPA National League Final at Royal Selangor Polo Club has four good teams entered (we won our first match yesterday beating Jogo Polo 5 - 4). Next week I play for 5-Star in the Bukit Kiara RMPA Merdeka League tournament. It has eight teams entered.
The RMPA Polo Leagues were started in 2005. We had just three teams in the first league tournament. Now four years on, we have three levels of leagues with a total of twenty-two teams participating. It is stunningly successful.
Perhaps Thailand needs to take a leaf out of the RMPA’s book and organise a series of events that are well thought out, perhaps linked as a series and better organised.
