Can’t afford to play polo? You can now…
Penny-farthings may come from the Victorian era, but the retro bikes are being given a new lease of life thanks to a new sport — penny-farthing polo.
“It’s a poor man’s polo,” said Penny Farthing Club founder Neil Laughton. “You don’t have to have stables, you don’t have to muck out, you don’t have to brush the horses. It’s a bike and we can trailer them around. We go to a lot of venues and have a lot of fun.”
However, whereas polo ponies tend to be well mannered, agile and responsive, penny-farthings are anything but. Your ride will be difficult to mount, steer and control. The bikes have neither gears nor brakes, so player-on-player crashes and falls are common.
Membership is a little cheaper than that of a traditional polo club, costing just £25 for the year — which includes the cost of bike maintenance and repairs, insurance and your first evening’s tuition.
For more information visit www.pennyfarthingclub.com
First published in Horse & Hound magazine on 24 July 2014
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Sophia Heath joined Horse & Hound in July 2013 having previously worked for the Daily Telegraph's Olympics website, CNN International and Omnisport. A Durham graduate with a Masters in journalism from City University, Sophia has evented, showjumped and hunted. Sophia left Horse & Hound in early 2015 to join an international boating website.