
EQUINE LAW

Attorney Amy G. Rice makes divots, and she has horses for clients – via their owners of course. One of Amy’s favorite activities is playing polo1 with her horses. She and her fellow polo players, including her husband Paul, play at The Glen Farm in Portsmouth, RI, where Amy resides, and serves as a Town Councilor. From May through September, you will find Amy at The Glen galloping down the fields, using her mallet to hit or defend against a little white ball, or umpiring eight players each mounted on thousand pound horses.
Amy finds polo exciting and challenging. Although polo has dangers, many of its rules focus on the safety of the horses and players. According to Amy, “While very athletic, polo is more cerebrally comparable to chess than other goal oriented sports.” Amy notes that polo, like most sports, involves assessing your opponents, but polo adds the assessment of other players’ mounts and the umpire (similar to assessing your judges). And, polo requires reassessments every chukker2 when players switch mounts.
Polo has been dubbed the sport of kings but Amy says you don’t have to be Prince Charles to play or dress like Julia Roberts to be a spectator. Watching a polo match is as casual as a tailgate party on the sidelines where you may drink and dine while enjoying the spectacle to the sound of thundering hooves galloping past in hot competition.

Reprinted with permission from the May/June 2003 issue of The Rhode Island Bar Journal.
[1] Polo is the world’s oldest team sport that has been since 600 years B.C. See John Lloyd, The Pimm’s Book of Polo by at p.13 (Trafaglar 1989). In fact, the first polo tournament in the United States took place in Newport, R.I. in 1876.↩
[2] A chukker is a period, similar to an inning. There are 6 chukkas lasting 7 minutes each↩