The sport of royals, maybe, but not for the faint-hearted

Polo is not only the most "royal" of sports it is arguably the oldest, dating back as long as 2,500 years.

A polo team has four players, who gallop across a field 275 meters long (three times the size of a football field). The players strike the hard plastic ball with a long polo mallet, made traditionally with a cane shaft or more fashionably today, with carbon-fiber.

There are six basic strokes to be mastered in striking the ball: the offside forehand, onside backhand, under-the-tail, under-the-neck, over-the-wrist and "into-the-Jaguar". Properly executed, the momentum of the horse and the skill of the player can propel a polo ball at over 160 km an hour.