Behind the Scenes at the Hamptons Polo Club

To reach the Hamptons Polo Club, you turn left off of crowded Highway 39, onto Scuttle Hole Road, heading north. The estates of the Hamptons are “south of the Highway” along the ocean, and the horse farms are to the north, on the way to the bay.

Scuttle Hole — mercifully free of traffic — carries you through idyllic green pastures, past the Atlantic golf club and gated paddocks, to Mill Stone Road, and a long lovely driveway into the Club.

Polo may be the world’s oldest sport, started in China 2000 years ago. It spread to Persia, and India, where the British found it, and brought it home to Europe and then America. Argentina has preserved and championed the game most of all.

Polo has been played at this Hamptons field for 25 years, and the Hamptons Polo Club formed in 2022. Players here range from beginners and children, to some of the world’s top professionals, male and female.

Rows of stables greet you as you walk in, and displays of modern art. Horses stick their heads out in curiosity. Uniformed field hands, in high boots, walk them to and from their training.

Past the stables were a splash of white tents and elegant people. Open fire barbecues were burning, Latin style, with fine ash in the air. Displays of clothes and alcohol. Open bars. A DJ. Life size statues of horses made of drift wood.

A Spanish saddle was on display from Baja Mexico. Shaped in the ancient Persian style, it had layer on layer of leather sheaths, each hand decorated with patterns. A leather coat, and a leather hat available as well. An artisan’s work of art.

The polo match was divided into 6 periods, or chukkas, of seven minutes each. Horses are changed frequently.

Two teams — pink and white — faced each other. The youngest players were age 16, and some of the world’s top scorers were there.

The players charged back and forth, as an announcer gave play by play. Empanadas in hot frying pans and other appetizers were passed among the crowd from the fire pits. Fittingly, a private jet flew directly overhead on its way to Easthampton airport.

Life as a painting, on a large green canvas.

From there: south of the highway, to Meadow Lane. An estate on the ocean, and a different set of animals.

The event was for the Peconic Baykeeper charity which protects water quality in this area. They helped pioneer the planting of oyster beds and kelp fields in local estuaries to clean the waters naturally. Now, whales and porpoises have become common again right off of the Southampton beaches.

Along a long back porch facing the sea, old friends chat with each other. A two piece band sings softly. A trustee of the charity receives an honor and makes a quick speech.

And next, a half mile stroll down the beach at sunset, past baby plovers running in and out of the ocean puddles. The traveler arrives at the “tents” that New England Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft has put up for this weekend’s beach party. These are giant, glowing, glass roofed buildings attached to his main house — 50,000 square feet in size? — rambling down toward the beach.

The beaches in the Hamptons are all publicly owned, and presumably, Kraft got his beach party permit the same way that a children’s birthday party did. The crane to construct the tents rose 100 feet high and stood for days. An army of trucks and service vehicles surround the house for a quarter mile, and fill the public parking lot at the beach. Klieg lights prepare to light the night sky outside the tents, and chandeliers inside twinkle like the rays of heaven.

Social lions and peacocks. Clams, oysters, whales, porpoises. Polo ponies and steel birds.

A Hamptons-style menagerie, on one soft summer night.