Polo Pitch receives Great Acclaim

21st Jun 2010

ATB Sports Solutions were again favoured this year with the task of preparing a top quality polo pitch for World Polo’s “MINT Polo in the Park” at Hurlingham Park in London.
For 11 months of the year this area is public parkland with Football and Rugby being played regularly with their damaging consequencies to the playing surfaces.
The challenge was to produce a top quality Polo Lawn solid enough to enable the ball to run whilst soft enough to ensure that players and ponies would not suffer excessive damage.
In addition the Polo pitch would have to be returned to a public park in the week following the event!

Rob Kendle, Director of ATB Sports Solutions was the man with the headache.

“Hurlingham Park is a great venue with a history of Polo going back to the Olympic Games in 1908. It is incredibly challenging to take an open space, a public park in fact and construct a Polo lawn that will play to specification for 3 days with 4 matches a day. The surface needs to be well presented and true as well as safe and with the right amount of traction for “High Ball” Polo, quite a tall order. Trying to get the correct moisture content and density of soil is paramount. This involved 24 hour attendance during the event to supply the correct amount of irrigation through the nights on the hottest weekend of the year so far.”

Rory Heron the CEO of Word Polo commented

“We are delighted with the success of the weekend and this is in no small measure down to the dedication of Rob Kendle and his Sports Solutions team. The pitch looked superb and played brilliantly all the weekend.”