Chandigarh: The disappearance of the Jaipur Polo Ground from New Delhi’s public life marks more than just the loss of a sporting venue. It signals the passing of an era when polo, for all its exclusivity, esotericism and mystique, remained visible, accessible and woven into the sporting and social fabric of the capital.On June 13, officials from the Land & Development Office (L&DO) that operates under the Union housing ministry, backed by police and paramilitary personnel, sealed this historic venue spread over 15.2 acres, after the Delhi high court denied the Indian Polo Association (IPA) that manages the sport, interim relief against eviction. Citing a vaguely defined “larger public purpose and benefit” for this takeover, the government summarily extinguished one of the last surviving public windows into a world of cavalry tradition, princely glamour and Army horsemanship. For younger Delhiites, raised amid security barriers, controlled access and the gradual disappearance of open public spaces, it may be difficult to imagine what the Jaipur Polo Ground once represented.For generations, this sprawling expanse of turf at the edge of Lutyens’ Delhi had served as a living reminder of India’s equestrian heritage, where spectators could simply wander in from the street – free of charge and completely unencumbered by security – to watch thoroughbred polo ponies thundered across a playing field the size of roughly nine football pitches and spectators in one of the world’s oldest team sports. Situated beside the Delhi Race Course – which too appears headed for a similar fate at the hands of the L&DO – the Jaipur Polo Ground occupied a unique place in the capital’s social and sporting life in the 1970s and 1980s, enjoying an almost mythical standing among a relatively small, but highly visible, section of Delhi’s elite. Polo was never a mass spectator sport, yet few activities carried comparable prestige. The allure lay as much in the drama surrounding the game as in the contest itself: a milieu of celebrated horsemen, cavalry messes, regimental traditions and colourful personalities that gave the ground an atmosphere unlike any other in the city.On many winter afternoons between late November and February during those decades, the Jaipur Polo Ground became the focal point of this colourful social and sporting theatre, attracting an audience whose glamour often rivalled that of the horsemen on the field. The spectator crowds were never large – rarely more than a few hundred, not counting the sizeable contingent of syces tending to the spirited ponies nearby – but they represented an impressive mix of Army officers, diplomats, businessmen, retired cavalrymen, society figures and a handful of dedicated polo enthusiasts.Smartly accoutred ladies, every bit as elegant as their counterparts at Ascot or Windsor’s Guards Polo Club outside London, some with their whippets in tow, occupied rows of folding chairs arranged along the brick terraces bordering the ground. The winter sun then shone brightly under clear blue skies in an era before pollution became the capital’s hallmark; the turf was immaculate, and beyond the galloping horses and swinging mallets rose the timeless silhouette of Safdarjung’s Tomb, completing a tableau that seemed to belong entirely to another age.Personally, my fascination with polo began through friendships. As an undergraduate and later a postgraduate at Delhi University, and years afterwards as a junior reporter with The Indian Express, notebook in hand, I found myself returning repeatedly to the Jaipur Polo Ground to watch friends play this flamboyant sport, whose customs, terminology and rituals were esoteric.Before long, this allure extended far beyond the sport itself. The immaculately turned-out horses, gleaming saddlery, regimental uniforms with lustrous thigh-high riding boots, liveried syces, polished trophies and colourful cast of players and spectators combined to create a charming and olde world spectacle of grace, style and curtesy that few other settings in Delhi could rival.Access to this world provided a ringside seat to some of the finest horsemen of their generation, like Kuldip Garcha, Rupi Brar, brothers Harinder “Billy” and Ravinder “Pickles” Sodhi, V.P. Singh, Raj Kalan, “Musty” Sekhon, Pradip Mehra and, of course, the inimitable and irrepressible Johnny Siga, one of only two Indian Navy polo players at the time. The other was Lieutenant Commander Sushil Kumar, later to become chief of Naval staff in 1998. President Droupadi Murmu during the President’s Polo Cup 2025 exhibition match at President’s Bodyguard (PBG) Parade Ground, in New Delhi. Photo: PIB via PTI.Almost all the others were Army officers, drawn principally from the 61st Cavalry, one of the world’s last surviving horse-mounted regiments, and the President’s Bodyguard (PBG), with many moving between the two elite units during their careers. They belonged to a generation that had learnt riding and polo at Army equitation establishments and regimental riding schools, where horsemanship was regarded not only as an essential military skill, but also a measure of character.The serious journalistic lifting at these polo matches, however, fell to The Statesman’s Ramu Sharma and The Indian Express’s T.R. “Tambi” Ramakrishnan, both of whom chronicled the sport with a flair that brought the Jaipur Polo Ground vividly to life for readers across the country.Tambi recalled that the polo ponies trotted down from stables at the PBG lines or other Army encampments along Race Course Road (now Lok Kalyan Marg) and Willingdon Crescent (later Mother Teresa Crescent), while many of the players followed on scooters and motorcycles. With barely enough time to change, they would mount up and plunge straight into the contest thundering across the polo field, he reminisced. Both Tambi and I recalled the effortless elegance of colonel Harinder “Billy” Sodhi on horseback and the swashbuckling daring of colonel Ravinder “Pickles” Sodhi, his sibling, whose combination of skill, courage and audacity routinely frustrated opponents and delighted spectators. Colonel V.P. Singh, one of India’s finest polo players and former commandant of the 61st Cavalry, played with the cool assurance of a master tactician, seeing angles and opportunities invisible to lesser mortals.The feisty Kuldip Garcha, on the other hand, was a veritable force of nature, driving horse and rider through the thick of any contest with relentless determination, while Rupi Brar combined superb horsemanship with effortless panache. The Navy’s Siga, by contrast, quietly prowled the field like a fast attack craft, exploiting the smallest gap in his opponent’s defences, before decisively scoring a winning goal.Also read: Is the Modi Govt’s Jaipur Polo Ground Takeover Linked to Post-Delimitation Parliament Expansion?The ambience at these polo matches was informal, and the barriers between participants and spectators non-existent. Everyone could hear the shouted and desperate instructions to players on the field from the stands, watch horses being saddled between chukkas (chukkers) and feel part of a world that was at once esoteric but surprisingly open-ended. But once the final chukka ended and the foaming horses were unsaddled, the action shifted elsewhere.Players and some spectators drifted towards the PBG Grounds on Willingdon Crescent, nearby temporary 61st Cavalry lines, or various other Army messes across Delhi Cantonment. Bonfires were lit against the winter chill, drinks magically appeared, and stories multiplied as players, spectators, and assorted hangers-on gathered around makeshift seating, often little more than bales of hay pressed into service as chairs.That day’s play was dissected in minute detail, with every thundering charge, near miss and goal-growing steadily in the retelling. Even routine “ride-off” – the shoulder-to-shoulder clashes in which riders attempt to force opponents away from the ball – acquired the status of cavalry heroics, and by the end of the evening, magnificent goals had become miraculous and hard-fought victories had become epic campaigns.Hovering over many of these colourful conversations were the polo legends of an earlier age whose exploits still formed part of sports’ oral tradition. Foremost among them was Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur, one of India’s greatest polo patrons and players of the twentieth century, who had gifted the Jaipur Polo Ground to Delhi in 1930 and whose presence continued to be felt long after his passing. The Maharajah had died in 1970 after suffering a heart attack whilst playing polo in England.Alongside him stood his son, brigadier Bhawani Singh, a distinguished horseman in his own right. Further back in polo’s lineage loomed giants like Rao Raja Hanut Singh, Kanwar Vijay Singh, Thakur Kishan Singh and Maharaja Colonel Prem Singh of Jodhpur, whose determination in returning to the saddle after losing both his legs in an accident had become part of polo folklore.These were not merely names in the record books; they represented a living chain of horsemanship that connected the old princely courts, cavalry regiments and the modern polo fields of independent India. Their exploits were invoked with near-religious reverence whenever old cavalrymen and polo players gathered over drinks after a match, each retelling adding another layer of drama and legend to their achievements. Together, their stories linked the players of the 1970s and 1980s to a tradition far older and larger than themselves – one that ran through princely states, cavalry regiments and imperial tournaments, and ultimately traced its roots to the ancient game of Sagol Kangjei played in Manipur around 3100 BCE. They were custodians of a sporting heritage that predated the British codification of modern polo in the 19th century, a legacy that belonged not to any single player or generation but to centuries of Indian equestrian culture. The names of these legendary horsemen continued to resonate across the polo circuit, dominating conversations and tournament entries from Delhi and Jaipur to Patiala, Hyderabad, Madras and Calcutta through the 1970s and early 1980s. A deserted Jaipur Polo Ground following the Union government’s takeover on June 13, 2026 with a notice from the Land and Development Office (L&DO) pasted at the entrance of the ground, in New Delhi on June 19, 2026. Photo: PTI/Atul Yadav.Polo’s popularity in India had reached its zenith in 1957, when the Indian team created history at Deauville in France by winning the World Championship and defeating the formidable Argentinians, who would subsequently emerge as the sport’s undisputed global powerhouse. For many of the players and spectators gathered at the Jaipur Polo Ground in later decades, that triumph remained the benchmark against which Indian polo continued to measure itself.Among the many colourful figures I recall at the Jaipur Polo Ground was retired major general D.K. Palit, the former soldier-philosopher-author and director of military operations (the appointment that later became DGMO), who had helped oversee Army operations during India’s 1962 war with China.Long after most of his contemporaries had retired from the saddle, the monocled Palit continued playing well into his eighties. I vividly recall on one occasion watching the octogenarian officer gallop after a loose ball, before colliding spectacularly with a rider less than half his age. Both were unseated, and Palit was flung heavily to the ground at the gallop, prompting a collective gasp from spectators who leapt from their seats in alarm.Yet moments later, he rose, restored his dislodged monocle, dusted himself off, checked that his horse and the opposing team’s rider were unharmed, and calmly remounted and resumed the chukka. The episode brought to mind an old cavalry maxim that a polo player is measured not by how many goals he scores but by how many times he climbs back into the saddle after being un-saddled. It was a philosophy suited to a sport that applauded not only horsemanship but also courage. Meanwhile, in this game of surprisingly few rules, irreverently known as hockey on horseback, two teams of four mounted players chased a small white ball across a vast 300-by-160-yard field, the largest playing arena in any organised team sport, striking it with long-handled mallets while mounted on ponies capable of reaching speeds of 60 km/h. To a newcomer, polo often looked like organised chaos, but to those who understood it somewhat, it was a blend of chess, precise anticipation, absolute control and a cavalry charge, all unfolding at high speed.Matches were divided into four seven-minute periods known as chukkas, with players changing horses regularly to cope with the demands placed on both rider and mount. The game’s central principle was the “Line of the Ball” – an imaginary line created by the ball’s path – which riders could not cross dangerously without conceding a foul. Shoulder-to-shoulder ride-offs, hooking an opponent’s mallet and fierce contests for possession were all permitted, making polo a game of speed, courage, horsemanship and split-second judgement.Central to polo is its unique handicap system, which measures a player’s overall ability and contribution to the team. Unlike golf, a higher handicap denoted a better player, ranging from minus two for beginners to the exceptionally rare ten-goal rating reserved for the world’s elite. Handicaps were reviewed annually by experienced committees that assessed not merely goals scored but horsemanship, tactical awareness, hitting ability, influence on matches and performances against stronger opposition. A team’s handicap was simply the combined rating of its four players. When sides of unequal strength met, the lower-rated team received a head start equivalent to the difference in handicaps, allowing amateurs and professionals to compete on broadly equal terms. The annual handicap lists, therefore, generated almost as much discussion in polo circles as the matches themselves.Looking back now, what remains most vivid is not any particular match – though a few still remain memorable – score or tournament result, but the atmosphere of that vanished world. Polo itself was only half the story; the rest lay in the rich pageantry surrounding the game – the larger-than-life personalities, the tales and humour exchanged over winter bonfires, and the aura of a tradition that stretched romantically and heroically back through generations of cavalrymen.For those of us fortunate enough to have spent afternoons at the Jaipur Polo Ground decades ago, and evenings thereafter, the memories remain remarkably vivid. But now, with them gone, it is difficult not to feel that Delhi has lost something of itself, a corner where history, tradition, horses and soldiers coexisted. Once such places vanish, they never return.