NSW Polo Crosse Scholarship recipient 2007

I was lucky enough to be one of the winners of the 2007 NSW Polo Crosse Scholarship which meant I spent a month with two families in NSW, Australia.  I was lucky to enough to win this scholarship from a lot of hard work.  This was training my horse, practising with my racket, listening and learning from whomever I could and having an excellent 2007 season playing as many games and as well as I could.

Whenever I could I trained and practised and I will carry on doing this for as long as I can.

I left Auckland with Flo Cummings the other Scholarship winner on Thursday June 28th.  We were met in Sydney by Paul Carter the Australian Polo Crosse Board liaison officer.  He took us to our host families.  I stayed with Rhonda and Charlie Melbourne for three weeks at Narribri which is two hours west of Tamworth. 

I really enjoyed this time, especially their best horse ‘Chicken’ who is one of their Australian stock horses and their best horse.  She was mean too!  She was a very skilled horse.  We got to ride every day on their farm and feeding out was a daily job through the week.  Learning their feed routines was important for me. 

I played for the Galloping Gully Club at two carnivals with some success.  These were held at Tamworth and Quirrindi.  Todd Melbourne (17 yrs) and I managed to get Best No. 1 and No. 2 in the C grade.  I won some stuff but I had to leave the feed there for Chicken.

Then I moved to John and Jill Halsteads’ farm in Meriwa which was a few hours drive south of the Melbourne’s.  I was there for only about a week.  I rode one of their registered stock horses ‘Donna’ who was quite a magnificent horse to ride because of her calm nature and her highly skilled manner due to her polocrosse experience. 

I played for their club called Bunnan for one carnival and gained some skills in the way they play the game which is quite different to us.  They are more calculating in their game plays than we tend to be.  Their ball pick up skills are very good too.  They also spend a lot of time practising drills on their horses including turning and rollbacks.

This scholarship means a lot to me for my future.  I will be sharing these skills with my whanau in our squad and we will be practising these as much as we can.  Training and practising is important and this experience has given me a glimpse of what this can do and where it can take you.  I will be encouraging my whanau to apply for this scholarship in the future and I am grateful to the NZ Polocrosse Board, the Tuwharetoa Development Squad, Mighty River Power and my wonderful whanau who all supported me in this experience.

Nō reirā, kei te mihi aroha ki a koutou i wā koutou tautoko mai ki ahau!  Kei te mihi, kei te mihi!
Nāku noa

Nā Mareka Prentice.