Day 75

Title: Polo On The Lawn

NOTE: This is a long, boring post. I just don't want to forget my day, so this is merely a documentation of most of it.

Today was phototastic.

First 99¢ bloodies and mimosas at the buff. That's the right way to start a day. That and an avocado, tomato and artichoke benedict.

Then Polo On The Lawn: $500,000 horses, $95,000 cars, $150 entrance fee, $20 lollipops, free booze and ice cream.

This is an event held at a private family's estate in Niwot right next to Haystack Mountain (the same one that the goat cheese comes from and you can play golf next to). It's held as a fundraiser for HospiceCare, and Ally's mother is on their charity board. Boulder's elite goes to it, and it's weird to be around those type of people. When the announcer guy was asking for $5000 donations, it's so bizarre seeing people raise their hands as nonchalantly as I would when giving a high five.


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That giant front yard is where they play polo. Like with real horses, not the "Marco" variety.

Ally and I started at the beverage table and got a round of drinks called Pimm's Cups, which I naturally called Pimp Cups. Then I took a bunch of pictures of glasses.

I then decided to photoadventure. If I remember correctly, the playing field is approximately 300 yards long (wikipedia says regulation is 100 yards, but google maps agrees more with my memory. This clearly was NOT a regulation match), and everybody was congregated within a small tent on one side. Nobody seemed to be venturing out beyond it, but it didn't look like anybody was going to stop you if you tried. I ended up at the end of the field with what I assume was one of the goal officials that would stand up and wave a flag every time someone scored (ie rarely). He kept glancing over his shoulder to where I was standing, and I got the impression he didn't want me there. A rogue ball had passed him earlier in the game and ended up back by where I was standing, so I decided to pick it up and give it to him as a way of making peace. When I said hi and handed him the ball, he smiled really big and nodded his head, but said nothing. I asked if it was okay that I was standing there, and he kind of furrowed his brow before slowly spitting out a "yes" and a "thank you" through a heavy Mexican accent. He smiled again and turned back around. That was nice of him to let me chill there.

It appears that the owners of the property hire mostly immigrant workers to tend their stables (btw there had to have been several hundred horses on the property altogether, and their stables were bigger than most houses. I would gladly live in it.), and one of their stable workers was commission to officiate the polo match. Oh, and if you zoom way into google map's satellite photo above, you can see two dots at either end of the field which are the goal posts, and I was standing behind the west ones. And the stables is the building just past the northwest corner of the field.

Then after some more photoadventuring, divot stomping, eating, polo watching, and peeing in the tiled, air conditioned porta-potties, Ally and I went on a sort of go-cart track for Land Rovers. Some dealership was a sponsor for the event, so they had ride-along demonstrations of their cars. The owners of the property had allowed them to build a track with extreme terrain to show off the off-road capabilities of their high end, TV ladened, leather smelling $95,000 SUV that only gets 12 MPG. I thought that it would be some foo-foo thing with small ups and downs, but I have to admit, this car could do some badass things. The Bronco (my pride and joy '74 off-roading mofo) could have probably done everything that it did, but it would have battered you to shit while doing it. It was pretty cool going along the 30 degree embankment where I could probably have stuck my hand out the window and picked a flower. That's the part that I don't know if the Bronco could have done without tipping over.

The driver then dropped us off at the stables so that we could look around. There was a nice hispanic man chillaxin in there, and as soon as my camera came out, he jumped up and asked if I was going to take a picture. I thought he was going to tell me that I wasn't allowed to (ala this lady), but he quickly ran to the wall and threw on the light switches.

What a nice guy.

Unfortunately I only had my 55-200mm lens on me at the time, so I couldn't get a wide enough field of view to get any decent pictures of the place. But there were a bunch of horses tied up outside of the it that we were petting for a while. I've never really been into horses, but I had to admit that these guys were really quite beautiful. They started making noises and stamping their hooves when I would take pictures. I don't think they liked the noise much.