Where it all started
I'd like to give you some background on our efforts, over the years, in Manipur, particularly women's polo.
As you probably know, it was in Manipur in the mid 1800's that the English tea planters and cavalry soldiers first saw the locals playing a game on horseback, locally called Sago Kangei
As horsemen, they were intrigued and thought the game could be a good training exercise as well as a recreational activity. Soon, the game was enthusiastically adopted by the English and was brought home to England and naturally spread all over the British Empire which, at that time, was all around the world.
I always say that many countries claim to be the originators/inventors of polo but there's no disputing that Manipur is the birthplace of modern polo. I had learned a bit about this place and its connection to polo in my efforts to learn all I could about the sport I had become passionate about.
I originally met my Indian counterpart, Somi Roy, in 2011 in Lexington where I was employed at USPA.
Somi is a Manipuri who lived and worked in NYC in the documentary film industry and was involved in archival preservation, having done projects around the country, including the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.
Somi is a grandson of the last Maharaja of Manipur and his mother was well known as an author, playwright and champion of the Manipuri Pony and other endangered species in the region.
At the time we met, Somi was involved in a project in Appalachia, particularly Eastern Kentucky and had ties to the people at the Kentucky Horse Park.
To honor his mother's concern and love of the Manipuri Pony, Somi sought out support from the US and USPA and contacted me.
We discussed the possibility of USPA sending a team to the Manipur International, a tournament that had existed for several years, but needed to be refined and professionalized. We thought the event needed to become internationally recognized and respected and a proper vehicle to shed light on the plight of the endangered Manipuri Pony. It had been a haphazard collection of teams from Europe and Asia, with no real structure. It wasn't clear as to exactly what the handicap of the tournament was, but it was thought to be in the neighborhood of 8-10 goals.
I appealed to the USPA for funding to send a team and was successful. In 2013, I went about the task of finding candidates that would be, not only skilled players who could ride anything, but also fine ambassadors of the USPA, the USA and our sport.
That first team consisted mostly of Team USPA members, led by Mason Wroe, who I had known since he was in high school and I knew he would represent well. The presence of a well organized team was felt by all of the other teams as well as the host association and set the tone for future tournaments. It was indeed an 8-10 goal tournament, with the local Manipuri team dominating the event. We lost in the final by a narrow margin, which no other visiting team had done. We have only won the event once in the 9 years since that first effort!
A few years into my efforts in Manipur, I was no longer with USPA and was in Manipur for the Governors Cup, an annual event played among local teams. Surprisingly, there was a women's Governor's Cup being played simultaneously. There were four women's teams competing, which completely floored me! The skill level was very low but what impressed me was the number of women players participating. In all of the rest of India there are barely enough women players to field a team, and here there were 30 women at one event!
Somi introduced me to the woman in charge of the women's event and we exchanged pleasantries, interpreted by Somi. I asked her if she would be open to a US women's team visiting Manipur to play. Her face lit up and, though Somi, indicated she would be delighted!
Over the next year or so, we set about planning and budgeting our first trip. With the help of Team USPA and Governor at Large Steve Armour we got it done on our side. In the meantime, Somi was busy in Manipur, creating the concept for an annual event. The time frame we were working with was mid January which coincided with Manipur's Statehood Day, a holiday celebrating the creation of the Manipur state. Somi was able to secure funding for the event through Manipur Tourism, Incredible India (the National tourism ministry) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
The first event was structured so that a Team USPA player would be on each of the four teams, to keep the game flowing and to improve the level of play for the local players. It was a great success, not only for accomplishing this goal, but it also spurred support from the Tata Trusts, the philanthropic arm of Tata Corporation. Tata is an Indian owned conglomerate with interests in India and around the world. Tata provided funding for player coaching and clinics that were very helpful in elevating the women player's playing skills.
The next, and subsequent years, the event evolved into an international tournament with teams from England, Canada, Australia, Kenya, Argentina as well as a team fielded by the Indian Polo Association (IPA), drawn from around India. This annual event continued through 2020. Covid forced the cancellation of the 2021 and 2022 tournaments. A 2023 event is being planned at the moment and we hope to pick up where we left off in January of 2020.
Ed Armstrong Brings First USPA Teams to Manipur!
AN AMERICAN YATRA
By L. Somi Roy, Huntre! Equine
One time, six or seven years ago, I had driven down from the Appalachian Mountains into Lexington, Kentucky, when my friend Evelyn Knight told me she could introduce me to Ed Armstrong of the United States Polo Association (USPA). We had been talking about the white fenced rolling green of the breeding farms of the Bluegrass State around us. I had vented my frustration at not being able to get the government of Manipur to move beyond sweet talk to provide a home for the street ponies of Manipur. I thought American polo might help. Manipuri polo was weak and those I had talked to could not do much.
A mild how-about notion has increasingly become a preoccupation since my first visit to my homeland after almost twenty years away in New York. Not being a particularly political or activist kind of person, much less an animal rights or environmentalist one, I thought polo might help in my efforts. Here I was, a native of Manipur, the birthplace of modern polo, living in the superpower with the largest polo association in the world. So why not American polo in Manipur?
From that initial introduction grew a friendship and an American Yatra, a journey that yoked polo and pony in a cause of sports and preservation. Ed recalled reading about Manipur as a polo-mad boy in Massachusetts. As Manipur is pretty much a blank spot in the American mind, I needed to show first rather than just talk, I approached Bill Cooke, a fellow museum curator and the director of the International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. We agreed we should fill an important gap and add Manipuri polo and pony to the permanent exhibit at his museum on The Horse in Sports.
Over the next two years I shuttled between my home in New York, Imphal, and Lexington, near where I was working on a film project. With the ready help of then Governor Gurbachan Jagat of Manipur, through the kind offices of his Private Secretary, my cousin Dr. R.K. Nimai Singh, we had Khelen Maisnam, erstwhile captain of the Manipuri polo team, to prepare a set of authentic polo costumes and gear. By the time the consignment arrived at Bill's museum, Ed was interested enough to come to check out its contents. As he tested a swing on the strange polo sticks of cane that Khelen had included, I asked if he and the USPA might send a team to play polo in Manipur. He sure could!
When Team USPA came to play at the Manipur International Polo Tournament organized by the Manipur Horse Riding and Polo Association during Manipur Tourism's Sangai Festival in November 2013, it was the first international team that came with a researched handicap, of 9 goals, for Manipur. Nothing was more telling of this landmark step the USPA instituted for Manipur than the tournament's opening night dinner. As the smartly uniformed and emblazoned American team, handsome, young, and athletic, lined up at the reception, the German team, which had played in Manipur before, seethed among themselves, Why didn't you tell us? We could also have brought a team like this, turned out like them! They said among themselves.
The adventure that Ed and I had embarked upon had found its first calling: helping Manipur's polo community where we saw it needed help. Huntre! Equine, as we came to be called, would provide value added services to Manipuri polo.
The next step was an exploration of international polo tourism. And then, women's polo.
Polo Yatra as Tourism
Polo Yatra, Huntre! Equine’s international women’s polo initiative, has two objectives. The first is the development and promotion of women's polo in India with Manipur as its center, but fanning out to the rest of the country, like Jaipur and Hyderabad. The second is the development of and promotions of tourism in Manipur using polo as the vector. Tourism is one of the priorities because of the foundational and presenting sponsorship by Manipur Tourism. Starting in 2018, it also has the support of Incredible India! in New Delhi which currently underwrites the travel of the international teams. It was gratifying then that Manipur Tourism received a national tourism innovation award for Polo Yatra connecting Manipur and Jaipur in 2016 with their shared passion for polo.
Our approach to polo tourism, now with Emma Horne Travel, bespoke travel specialists of London and New Delhi as Huntre!Adventures is to design for a small but vital clientele of polo and equine enthusiasts. Tourism is pretty unavoidable as industrially underdeveloped Manipur and the rest of the North East Region of India open up to the rest of the world. Moreover, under the Act East Policy of India, Manipur is emerging as the gateway to Southeast Asia, particularly Myanmar. I worked with Gautam Mukhopadhyay, the Ambassador of India in Yangon, to set up chartered flights from Myanmar to Imphal for the Sangai Festival when the men's tournament is also played. We expect Manipur and NER to be the next global frontier with the ongoing democratization of Myanmar.
But as a social enterprise based in Manipur, with partners in Mumbai and New York and Massachusetts, we see tourism beyond the incoming visitors and tourism dollars. One sees tourism as both boon and bane, as last year’s demonstrations in Venice and Barcelona attest. The exotic character and draw of Manipur is undeniable, but a primary concern is not to turn it into a tourism-dependent economy that impacts the culture and the people negatively. The question is, How will it impact the host people and culture who stay on after the tourist has gone back home. And to develop tourism, the first change has to come locally, where the hosts have to understand what it is about this culture that is going to the unique selling point. And for this the people of Manipur have to know their culture: a challenge with all young generations in this emerging globalized world. If we in Manipur do not know ourselves, how will we know what we can show our visitors? That knowledge will determine what it is that we show the tourist. Therefore, those aspects of the culture have to be conserved in order to be presented without catering solely to the vulgarizing influence of market tourism.
Polo Yatra therefore builds on activities beyond polo and entertainment events. They have included unique unticketed events that show the real culture Manipur: the 108 dishes of the Pranalika feast at Shree Shree Govindaji Temple, a traditional cooking class, a ritual women's choir of the Jalakeli at the royal temple of the Palace, visits to Allied as well as Japanese World War 2 cemeteries, guided tours of Kangla Fort, a traditional dinner at a Naga village, a Manipuri wedding, and so on.
And always, for players and tourists alike, prayers at the shrine of Lord Marjing the polo god in Heingang Village, site of the preserve for the Manipuri Pony under construction. For our basic philosophy is that tourism and conservation must go hand in hand.
The Women of Manipur
The notion of filling the void of women's polo in India came about when a pretty young lady served tea to Ed and me at a game. A polo player! How about playing with American girls? She almost dropped the tea in her excitement. We will start practicing tomorrow! She exclaimed. It became a real idea when Steve Armour, Governor at Large of the USPA, saw its possibility when he came on a tour operated by Ed Armstrong's Huntre Adventures to watch the men play the next year and developed the idea in the US.
It was really quite remarkable, what the Manipuri women were doing, we discovered. They had fielded teams before in the state tournaments. Polo not being a very gender bound sport, there was even a Kenyan ladies team that came to play when the first international tournament took place in 1992. But what we thought we needed was a women's only event. A complaint I had heard in Manipur, and indeed, all over India, was that the girls never get enough games to play, never get the best horses. They were always an addition, a sidelight, a curtain raiser. Steve, Ed and I thought a women's tournament would be a strategic development for Indian women's polo; another value added service that Huntre! Equine would undertake. And thus was born the Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament in 2016, the first and only women’s polo tournament in India, and now an annual event.
We certainly had the raw material, for Manipur is always impressively rich when it comes to sports and performance. A tiny powerhouse of sports – We come second only to the Armed Forces in the national games, and the Armed Forces is all Manipuris, Governor Jagat remarked wryly to me one time – Manipur accounted for about two-thirds of the women polo players in the whole of India. Thinking on it, it is not surprising. After all, this is where the British took the game from in the mid-19th century to turn it into what has become modern polo. Distinctively and uniquely, here it is not the Game of Kings, though Manipur's monarchs during the course of the kingdom's history, but the Game of the People. Egalitarian, village-based, popular, Manipuri women's polo rests on the fabled power of Manipuri women, confident, and outspoken. Whether in politics, culture, or the economy, women in Manipur are at the forefront. Their control of the state's dominant cottage and retail sectors, has resulted in the traditional markets being manned by women, so to speak.
Yet for all that, women's polo in Manipur is weak. They need their own discrete arena to develop and grow, we felt. And then, who will they play with? So Huntre! Equine's women's polo initiative centers on Manipur, but reaches out to women players all over the country. So when Steve brought Team USPA Women to Manipur, I reached out to Jaipur, the Crown Jewel of Indian Polo, or as its Princess Diya Kumari said to me, pithily and charmingly, Many places play polo but Jaipur plays only polo. It turned out that even Jaipur did not have enough women players.
Polo Yatra: 2016 and 2017
The 1st Manipur Statehood Day Women's Polo Tournament was held in January 2016, with the finals on January 21, Manipur's Statehood Day. Huntre! Equine decided to help the state’s other polo association, the older, struggling All Manipur Polo Association (AMPA), in its mission to support polo in Manipur, and handed it the task of organizing the women’s polo tournament.
Manipur fielded three teams for a mixed tournament of four teams. Each was led by one of the American players – Team USPA Captain Cristina Fernandez, Tiamo Hudspeth, Carly Persano, and Julia Smith. Then it was off to Jaipur. Two players from Manipur, Salam Sumita and Thoudam Tanna, with their coach Khelen Maisnam, travelled with 30 Sankirtan dancing drummers added by Nidhi Tripathi, Commissioner of Manipur Tourism, to Jaipur. Together with Manisha Malhotra Pattu and Avshreya Pratap Rudy, the Indian contingent played with their American counterparts. An exhibition game Polo Yatra humorously titled Cowgirls v Gopis took Jaipur's polo community by storm before the finals of the Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Cup named after the late monarch and father of Princess Diya Kumari.
The connection grew into Polo Yatra 2017, an international polo journey threading powerhouse giant US to tiny birthplace of modern polo Manipur and to glorious royal Jaipur at the impressive ground of Vikram Singh Rathore in Mundota, and, reaching southward, to Hyderabad, the hi-tech city of Google and the Nizam of yore. Steve brought back another Team USPA, this time led by Anna Winslow, with Stephanie Massey, and Audry Persano joining her sister Carly Persano. The young and sleek Nasr Polo of Hyderabad was the host. This time the Indian contingent was composed of Hyderabadi Chaiyya Vaibhase from the Hyderabad Riding and Polo Club, young Rajvi Rao and, from New Delhi, Sonia Jabbar.
Polo Yatra 2017 added another dimension in Imphal, when a ladies’ team from Hurlingham Polo Association joined Team USPA Women put together by Steve, for a three cornered 2nd Manipur Statehood Day Women's Polo Tournament, presented once again by Manipur Tourism, this time led by N. Ashok. English pro player Annabel McNaught Davies came by way of Buenos Aires to lead the team composed of Charlotte Sweeney, Maime Powell, and Sarah Hughes. A hard fought tournament with drama and stunning wins, Team USPA prevailed.
Polo Yatra 2018: Building a Home for Indian Women’s Polo
The takeaway from the experience of the first two Polo Yatras was that the long term mission of Huntre! Equine to support, develop and promote women's polo in India needed to give Indian women’s polo a home. The conceptual framework of Polo Yatra was honed to build just that, in Manipur. The yatra started courtesy of Incredible India! of the Ministry of Tourism in New Delhi. Players the US, Australia and Kenya gathered in Imphal for the 3rd Manipur Statehood Day Tournament, again sponsored and presented by Manipur Tourism, and organized by AMPA.
What distinguished Polo Yatra 2018 was not just that it was Team Kenya this time that stopped in Jaipur for a game and the Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Polo Tournament on the way or that Prashant K. Singh, Principal Secretary for Tourism for the Government of Manipur agreed to up the 3rd Manipur Statehood Day Tournament to feature three international teams to develop the tournament into full field league tournament. Manipur fielded two teams: Team Marjing and Team Thangjing and in a first, the Indian Polo Association (IPA) fielded their first women’s team to bring to total number of teams to six.
The tournament also finally arrived at a mixed goal handicap of +2 for the visiting teams. The six teams played league in two groups, one with USA, Australia, and Thangjing Manipur, and the other with Kenya, IPA, and Marjing Manipur. Over four days and seven games, from January 17-21, the tournament ended with a closely fought finals between group leaders USA and Kenya.
Team Kenya came from behind to pip Team USA 5-4. The Americans led with three quick goals in the opening chukka. Handicap 3 player, Marissa Wells, notched a field goal hat-trick. In the second chukka, Team Kenya captain and handicap 2 player, Tiva Gross, slotting in a penalty to cut the deficit and followed up with a beautiful goal from the center of the field to bring the score to 2-3 at the break. Wells took her tally to four by scoring another field goal for Team USA but Imogen Voorspuy struck for Kenya to bring the score to 3-4. In the dramatic last chukka, Nikki Barlow made it 4-4, and with 20 seconds to go, Kaila Millar sealed Team Kenya's victory with an under-the-neck-shot.
Team Kenya was awarded the BSE Cup, a custom made trophy of bell metal based on a traditional royal wedding gift called a kaosel. Gifted by Ashish Chauhan, Managing Director and CEO of BSE, formerly the Bombay Stock Exchange, it was presented to the team by Governor Dr. Najma Heptulla of Manipur together. Her Excellency also presented the Runners Up trophy, also of kaosel design, to Team USA.
In a gesture to the Manipuri Pony and in recognition of the plight this Endangered Breed, both teams donated their cash awards of Rs 60,000 and Rs. 40,000 for the preservation of the Manipuri Pony to the Ibuthou Marjing Khubam Kanba Lup of Heingang Village, an association tasked with the preservation of the shrine and the ponies of Lord Marjing, Lord of the Manipuri Pony.
And so over 40 ladies from 4 countries on 4 continents played on Mapal Kangjeibung, the world’s oldest extant polo ground, riding on Manipuri Ponies, the world’s original polo pony, to help build a center for women’s polo in India in Manipur, the birthplace of modern polo.
Polo Yatra 2018: The 3rd Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament Teams
Team USA
Olivia Stringer-Berube, captain, Aiken SC
Belinda Brody, West Palm Beach FL
Marissa Wells, Fallston, MD
Eva Green, Lexington, KY
Team Australia
Billie Mascart, captain, Sydney
Alessia Russo, Sydney
Chloe Warren, Adelaide
Whitney Warren. Adelaide
Indiana Benetto, Auckland NZ
Team Kenya
Rowena Stichbury, group leader
Tiva Gross, captain
Kaila Millar
Nikki Barlow
Imogen Voorspuy
Indian Polo Association
Monica Saxena, captain, New Delhi
Sanya Suhag, New Delhi
Ameera Pasrich, New Delhi
Abigail Slater, Gurgaon
Rajvi Rao, Hyderabad
Team Marjing Manipur
Salam Sumita, captain
Asem Romabati
Soibam Langlen
Ningthoujam Ashakiran
Oinam Victoria
Irom Sangeeta
Team Thangjing Manipur
Khungdongbam Habe, captain
Khungdongbam Deventy
Laishram Thadoi
RK Neelu
Thoudam Tanna
Thongbam Jetholia
L Somi Roy is the Principal of Huntre! Equine, (www.huntre.org), a social enterprise of equestrian sports based in Imphal and Mumbai. An earlier version of this article appeared in “Manipur Celebrates Women’s Polo”, published by Manipur Tourism.
The next and 4th Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament will be held in Imphal from January 15-21, 2019. Four international teams will play with 2 Indian teams. If interested in participating, please write to Huntre! Equine at [email protected] or our Adviser Partner, Ed Armstrong of Edward J. Armstrong, Inc, at [email protected] For information about Huntre!Adventures polo tours, please contact [email protected].
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Jetwings India On Manipuri Women’s PoloIn Jet Airways in-flight magazine, Ananya Bahl situates Manipuri women’s polo in the context of women’s sports and cultural activity in Manipur.
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Polo Yatra 2017: On American And British Women’s PoloSteve Armour, Governor-at-Large of the USPA and manager/leader, and player Audry Persano of Team USPA Women, and Annabel McNaught-Davies, captain of Hurlingham Polo Association, talk about international women’s polo on Impact TV, Manipur.
Click to view...
Polo Yatra 2017: Hyderabad Presents Women Polo PlayersRajvi Rao and Chaya headline women’s polo in Hyderabad: A good start to developing women’s polo in South India.
Polo Yatra 2017: Hyderabad Toasts Indian Women’s PoloRaunaq Yar Khan, scion of the Nizam of Hyderabad, hosts a hilltop party for USPA and Indian women polo players prior to presenting the cup in honor of Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, Nizam VI of Hyderabad and Sir Viqar Um-Umra.
USPA And Women’s Polo In Imphal And JaipurFilmmaker Roopa Barua covers the 1st Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament in Imphal and Cowgirls v Gopis exhibition game in Jaipur, featuring Team USPA Women.
Click to view...
Conde Nast Traveller India On Polo In ManipurSandip Roy writes, with photography by Jasper Johns, on the India’s first women’s polo tournament, and more, Manipur, featuring Team USPA Women.
Read more...
Spain’s Polo Lady Covers Team USPA Women In ManipurThe world’s only women’s polo magazine covers India’s first women’s polo tournament, featuring Team USPA Women, playing in Imphal and Jaipur.
Read more...
Who We Are
Huntré! Equine LLP is a social enterprise that seeks to leverage the nexus of sports and culture by using strategies involving sports policy, events, arts and media, education, and infrastructure. Our working partners are Roopa Barua (Mumbai), Cherian Mathai (New York), and Edward Armstrong (Massachusetts, US). Emma Horne Travel is our travel partner for Huntre!Adventures, our polo and sports tours initiative.
L. Somi Roy (Promoter) has been working with Ed Armstrong and the United States Polo Association (USPA) to bring polo teams from the USA since 2013. This has led to to Huntre! Equine'sPolo Yatra, the first international women's polo tour of India, now in its third year and widened to in four cities across the country, and including teams from England, Kenya and Australia. He is also working on conserving the endangered Manipuri Pony, having organized an exhibit on Manipuri polo at the International Museum of the Horse in Kentucky, and is currently spearheading the development of a natural pony preserve that he helped establish in Manipur in 2013. He organized four Major League Baseball coaching camps, and re:PLAY, an international film festival for three years on performance and sports in his native Manipur.
Roy has curated for the Museum of Modern Art, for whom he is currently developing Indian film exhibitions as a guest curator, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum, Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, The Asia Society, the American Museum of the Moving Image and UCLA. He has served as the festival director for the Asia Society, Gold Coast International Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival and the New York Indian Film Festival (formerly MIAAC) in the US. His exhibitions have been seen in China, India, Indonesia and Israel. He has also curated public media exhibitions including first video exhibition in Times Square, for Richard Gere and Tibet House, and at the Continental Atrium, the first on-going public video exhibition in New York. His exhibition on animation art was shown at the Atlanta Olympics and the Beijing International Conference on Women. He was the HD Producer in New York for Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Roy has taught at New York University and written on film and the arts for international journals and lectured at the National Geographic Society, the Asia Society and the Smithsonian Institution.
His translations of Manipuri literature have been published by Thema and Zubaan Books. In 2014, he started Imasi Publications, an imprint of Imasi: The Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi Foundation in Manipur, of which he is the Founder and Managing Trustee.
www.Huntre.org
About Huntré! EquineHuntré! Equine LLP is a social enterprise that seeks to leverage the nexus of sports and culture by using strategies involving sports policy, events, arts and media, education, and infrastructure. The partnership’s undertakings will use comparative advantages from international, national and regional practices, drawing upon the networks of its partners so as to create positive linkages between sports, culture, industry, commerce and education.
© 2011. Huntré. All Rights Reserved
Best viewed with IE 7.0 / IE 8.0 / FF
Daughters of the Polo God wins Top Prize in New York
December 2, 2018
Equus Film Festival, NYCRoopa Barua's paean to Manipuri women polo players, and their encounter with Team USPA, wins top Festival Directors Award at the Equus Film Festival.
Click to view the teaser...
CONSERVATION
Sahapedia: Manipuri Ponies and Origins of PoloI heard about the Manipuri Pony in 2013 from L. Somi Roy, a cultural conservationist in Manipur, and was immediately intrigued when I was told it was the world's original polo pony....
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Sports Illustrated on Manipuri Pony Preservation
The patience and dedication of a few have given a new lease of life to the Manipur's dwindling pony population but there is a long way to go.
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ForeignPolicy.com
In the Kingdom of Dying PoniesPolo hails from the forgotten, violent state of Manipur, India. Can anyone save its endangered, fabled horses ?
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Stashd Films
International Polo and Pony PreservationA short by Stashd Films from Nagaland on Huntre! Equine's work with USPA and international polo on pony preservation. The 10th Manipur International Polo Tournament, 2016.
Click to view...
PRI Broadcast
How a polo tour in India is helping to protect a rare breed of poniesPersia claims to be the birthplace of polo, but the modern version of the game comes from the small state of Manipur in northeastern India. The British discovered it there and brought “hockey on horseback” to the West in the 19th century. These days, the West is going back to Manipur to play polo.
Click to listen on PRI...
Sandip Roy: Manipuri Polo
Manipur’s court records talk about a game back in the 1st century AD and what’s different about polo in Manipur is that this not just a game for posh country clubs. Even ordinary villagers played it.
Click to listen on KALW San Francisco...
Manipur Cabinet Approves State Pony Policy
Manipur Pony Conservation and Development Policy has been approved taking into account of the dwindling number of Manipuri pony, which is a rare species found only in the state.
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NDTV On Manipuri Pony Preservation
Amba Suhasini of NDTV Good Times visits the shrine to the Manipuri god of polo with preservation spearhead Somi Roy of Huntre! Equine.
Click for video...
USPA on Pony and Polo
Steve Armour of the USPA and the Houston Polo Club, Ed Armstrong of Huntre! Equine and edwardjarmstrong.com, and L. Somi Roy of Hun-tre! discuss international prospects of Manipuri polo and the Manipuri Pony. Imphal. November 2014.
Watch Video
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Pony Nature Preserve Begun
The first of 53 ponies entered the Pony Nature Preserve in Heingang and Khundrakpam in time for USPA, German and Thai polo players to see the first phase of this preservation project to house Imphal's street ponies, homeless since ~1985. Spearheading the move for the preserve, the Chief Minister of Manipur, O. Ibobi Singh also declared the Manipuri Pony and Endangered Breed.
Click here to read...
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Manipur, Birthplace of Polo, Donates Exhibit To International Museum Of The Horse, November 19, 2012
The International Museum of the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington unveils a new exhibit chronicling the contributions of the people and ponies of Manipur. This Southeastern Himalayan kingdom, now a state in North East India, introduced the sport of polo to the British in 1854...
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Teams at 3rd Manipur Statehood Day Women's Polo Tournament
January 17-21, 2018Six women's polo teams - Australia, Indian Polo Association, Kenya, Manipur Marjing, Manipur Thangjing, and USA - played in the field league tournament. Team Kenya took the BSE Cup.
Click to download a PDF of the Teams and Players....
Polo Yatra 2018: Team Kenya lifts the BSE Cup
January 21, 2018Kenya edged United States of America 5-4 to clinch the 3rd Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament at Kangjeibung Grounds in Manipur..
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Polo Yatra 2018: Australia, Kenya, US and 3 Indian women's teams clash in Manipur
January 17-21, 2018Six women's teams contested in the 3rd Manipur Statehood Day Women's Polo Tournament, presented by Manipur Tourism, in a field league tourney for the BSE Cup.
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Polo Yatra 2017: Mumbai Celebrates Women’s Polo
January 24, 2017
Steve Armour, Governor-at-Large of the USPA, rings the closing bell at the Bombay Stock Exchange, with assistance from Annabel McNaught-Davis, captain of the Hurlingham Polo Association women’s polo team, after a luncheon hosted by Ashish Chauhan, CEO and Managing Director of the BSE. An Assam High Tea at Ministry of New, hosted by Roopa Barua and L. Somi Roy, partners in Hunter! Equine, and sponsored by TeaTrunk, followed.
Polo Yatra 2017: USPA Triumphs over HPA in Manipur
January 17-21, 2017
Team USPA Women won 9-3 over Hurlingham in the 2nd Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament at Mapal Kangjeibung Polo Ground in Imphal. The three-way league also featured Manipur. The tournament was sponsored by Manipur Tourim, and organized by All Manipur Polo Association.
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Polo Yatra 2017 in Hyderabad
January 11-4, 2017
Nasr Polo Club of Hyderabad hosted a four-day polo clinic and arena tournament in Hyderabad. The clinics were conducted by Team USPA Women and were held in the morning. The games featured mixed teams of American players from Team USPA and women players from Hyderabad, Chennai and New Delhi. Trophies awarded were the Mir Mahbub Ali Khan Nizam VI & Sir Viqar Um-Umra Cup and the CM Cup.
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Polo Yatra 2017 in Jaipur
January 9, 2017
Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh of Jaipur invited Team USPA to play at Mundota Fort and Palace in Jaipur. The mixed teams also included men and women players from India, England and Switzerland and played for the Antriksh India Jaipur Gold Cup. It was hosted and organized by Vikram Singh Rathore of the House of Mundota, Jaipur.
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Polo Yatra Brings US and UK Women's Polo Teams
The India International Women's Polo Tour of India features Team USPA Women and Hurlingham Polo Association at games and coaching clinics at Jaipur, Hyderabad and Imphal.
See more…
New Polo Project for Team USPA in ManipurPolo Lady (Spain), May 2016
Team USPA Women’s India tour in January was the first time a women’s polo team had visited the country. The team, composed of Cristina Fernandez, Carly Persano, Tiamo Hudspeth and Julia Smith, was led by Steve Armour.
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Team USPA Women in Manipur and Jaipur
Huntre!Adventures brings the first women's team to India: Team USPA Women will play in the inaugural Manipur Statehood Day Women's Polo Tournament (January 17-21) in Imphal and the Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Cup (January 24) in Jaipur. Click here for the program Details
Hun-tré! Polo Tours 2015
Manipur Polo and Nagaland's Hornbill Festival Tour:
Discover an exciting new frontier, India’s North East Region, with a unique equestrian adventure in Manipur and a celebration of tribal culture and sports in Nagaland. With Thomas Cook International and Emma Horne Travel.
International Package»
Domestic Package»
Mongolian and US Polo in Manipur 2014
Hun-tre Polo Tours arranged for the Genghis Khan Polo and Riding Club of Ulaan Bataar and the US from Team USPA to play in the 8th Manipur Polo International Polo Tournament.
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Radio interview with Christopher Giercke, founder Genghas Khan Polo Club-Mongolia
Hun-tré! Polo Tours 2014
Join ORIGINS:POLO IN THE LAND OF ITS BIRTH
(Nov 23 - 30, 2014), a first-ever, unique, exotic polo adventure to the birthplace of modern polo! Hun-tré! Polo Tours is an international venture of EdwardJArmstrong.com
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USPA team plays in Imphal
A six-member USA team organized by the United States Polo Association was brought by Huntre! to play in the 7th International Manipur Polo Tournament, held in Imphal from November 23-28, 2013.
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MEDIAPOLO LADIES ROCK MANIPUR!
Australian, Kenyan, American and Indian women polo players' polo adventure in Manipur. Fan video of "Mundian to Bach Ke ("Beware of the Boys" -Jay-Z Mix)" by Panjabi MC & Jay-Z.
Click to view...
Podcast on Women's Polo from US Team polo player Eva Crossman of Lexington KY on FindingTheVoices.com podcast from Md, USA, with host Monica Ingudam.
Click to view...
Polo Yatra 2017 in Jaipur and Hyderabad Polo Yatra 2017 was held in Jaipur and Hyderabad with Team USPA Women before Hurlingham Polo Association joined them in Imphal. Video by Roopa Barua, partner in Huntre! Equine.
Click to view...
Polo Yatra 2017: US Consulate in Hyderabad Salutes Women's PoloWatch this video on Team USPA Women and Indian players game at Nasr Polo.
Click to watch...
On Huntre! Equine's International Polo and Pony Preservation
Polo players from the US, Kenya and Australia at the men's international polo in November, 2016. With interviews of L. Somi Roy and Ed Armstrong of Huntre! Equine on how polo is being used to spotlight the state of pony preservation. By Stashd Films from Nagaland...
Click to view...
Polo Yatra 2017: Verve Celebrates Women’s PoloIndia’s foremost lifestyle magazine for women attends a high tea for Team USPA Women and Hurlingham Polo Association at Ministry of New, Mumbai, hosted by TeaTrunk.
Jetwings India On Manipuri Women’s PoloIn Jet Airways in-flight magazine, Ananya Bahl situates Manipuri women’s polo in the context of women’s sports and cultural activity in Manipur.
Read more...
Polo Yatra 2017: On American And British Women’s PoloSteve Armour, Governor-at-Large of the USPA and manager/leader, and player Audry Persano of Team USPA Women, and Annabel McNaught-Davies, captain of Hurlingham Polo Association, talk about international women’s polo on Impact TV, Manipur.
Click to view...
Polo Yatra 2017: Hyderabad Presents Women Polo PlayersRajvi Rao and Chaya headline women’s polo in Hyderabad: A good start to developing women’s polo in South India.
Polo Yatra 2017: Hyderabad Toasts Indian Women’s PoloRaunaq Yar Khan, scion of the Nizam of Hyderabad, hosts a hilltop party for USPA and Indian women polo players prior to presenting the cup in honor of Mir Mahboob Ali Khan, Nizam VI of Hyderabad and Sir Viqar Um-Umra.
USPA And Women’s Polo In Imphal And JaipurFilmmaker Roopa Barua covers the 1st Manipur Statehood Day Women’s Polo Tournament in Imphal and Cowgirls v Gopis exhibition game in Jaipur, featuring Team USPA Women.
Click to view...
Conde Nast Traveller India On Polo In ManipurSandip Roy writes, with photography by Jasper Johns, on the India’s first women’s polo tournament, and more, Manipur, featuring Team USPA Women.
Read more...
Spain’s Polo Lady Covers Team USPA Women In ManipurThe world’s only women’s polo magazine covers India’s first women’s polo tournament, featuring Team USPA Women, playing in Imphal and Jaipur.
Read more...
Who We Are
Huntré! Equine LLP is a social enterprise that seeks to leverage the nexus of sports and culture by using strategies involving sports policy, events, arts and media, education, and infrastructure. Our working partners are Roopa Barua (Mumbai), Cherian Mathai (New York), and Edward Armstrong (Massachusetts, US). Emma Horne Travel is our travel partner for Huntre!Adventures, our polo and sports tours initiative.
L. Somi Roy (Promoter) has been working with Ed Armstrong and the United States Polo Association (USPA) to bring polo teams from the USA since 2013. This has led to to Huntre! Equine'sPolo Yatra, the first international women's polo tour of India, now in its third year and widened to in four cities across the country, and including teams from England, Kenya and Australia. He is also working on conserving the endangered Manipuri Pony, having organized an exhibit on Manipuri polo at the International Museum of the Horse in Kentucky, and is currently spearheading the development of a natural pony preserve that he helped establish in Manipur in 2013. He organized four Major League Baseball coaching camps, and re:PLAY, an international film festival for three years on performance and sports in his native Manipur.
Roy has curated for the Museum of Modern Art, for whom he is currently developing Indian film exhibitions as a guest curator, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum, Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, The Asia Society, the American Museum of the Moving Image and UCLA. He has served as the festival director for the Asia Society, Gold Coast International Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival and the New York Indian Film Festival (formerly MIAAC) in the US. His exhibitions have been seen in China, India, Indonesia and Israel. He has also curated public media exhibitions including first video exhibition in Times Square, for Richard Gere and Tibet House, and at the Continental Atrium, the first on-going public video exhibition in New York. His exhibition on animation art was shown at the Atlanta Olympics and the Beijing International Conference on Women. He was the HD Producer in New York for Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Roy has taught at New York University and written on film and the arts for international journals and lectured at the National Geographic Society, the Asia Society and the Smithsonian Institution.
His translations of Manipuri literature have been published by Thema and Zubaan Books. In 2014, he started Imasi Publications, an imprint of Imasi: The Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi Foundation in Manipur, of which he is the Founder and Managing Trustee.
www.Huntre.org
About Huntré! EquineHuntré! Equine LLP is a social enterprise that seeks to leverage the nexus of sports and culture by using strategies involving sports policy, events, arts and media, education, and infrastructure. The partnership’s undertakings will use comparative advantages from international, national and regional practices, drawing upon the networks of its partners so as to create positive linkages between sports, culture, industry, commerce and education.
© 2011. Huntré. All Rights Reserved
Best viewed with IE 7.0 / IE 8.0 / FF