Day 14 – What’s a Chukker?

Around ten we headed for Indio, another valley city a little farther to the east.  Our destination was Eldorado.  Not the lost city of gold, but the polo field.  As we’ve said, we’ve been coming here for fourteen years and for most of them we’ve wanted to see a polo match. But it just never worked out.  This time, the four of us were determined to finally see a game.

On the way there, we do a little research on the rules of polo.  The rules are designed to protect the horsemen and the ponies.  There aren’t many rules, other than the person who hits the ball has the “right of way” and no one can ride between him/her and the ball. Blocking and bumping is allowed, but only at 45 degrees or less.  No head-on collisions allowed!  The games are divided into periods called chukkers.  A chukker lasts approximately 7 minutes and players use a fresh horse for each chukker.  (Now, you know!)  There are four players on each team and two umpires on horses to officiate.

Note: They call the horses “ponies”, but they are full-sized mixed breed horses.  Typically, they are a mix of Thorough-bred, Quarter Horse and Arabian.

We turned into the Eldorado Polo Club and quickly came upon lots of horses…left of us, to the right of us…horses everywhere. This looks like it’s going to be great! On our left are huge fields of emerald green grass with horsemen (and horsewomen) riding to and fro.  Each playing field is 360 yards by 160 yards, so there’s lot of room for the to-ing and the fro-ing!

Monte parked the Highlander along the field boundary.  We walk along the field and all of us are immediately entranced.  We could almost touch the horses…and as they rush toward the ball we can feel the pounding of their hooves.  It’s a picture perfect day for watching these ponies and we’re all loving it!

We take a break and head for lunch at the canteen.  From there you can still watch the games and enjoy the beautiful weather.  Great meal…great times!

The games are over after lunch, so we decide to head to a neighboring polo field, the Empire Field. Immediately, we are impressed. This is very upscale compared to Eldorado.  The fields have canopied seating areas around them and little cart comes around to serve beverages.  Also, there’s an announcer here…so we get a better idea of what is going on with the game. Loving this!  Not to mention, the area around the fields are beautiful…even the palm trees have flowers on them!

Finally, we tore ourselves away from the polo.  We then drove into Palm Desert to visit the Visitor Center…they’ve moved it and it just isn’t the same great place that it was all those years before.

Time for a little more valley fun….casinos.  There are several casinos scattered around the valley, most nameed for the tribe that owns them:  Morongo, Agua Calliente, Trump, etc.  (As I said, “most”)  We visited Agua Calliente and Monte is the winner for today.