The delicious adrenaline rush of polo is hard to describe to those who have yet to experience the speed of high-octane ponies, the adulation of spectators and the glamour of the sport.
Some of those who get hooked are happy to knock around at the low-goal end of the game. Others, keen to line up a few gold and silver baubles in the trophy room, set their sights on international high-goal polo – and, sometimes, a polo estate. That’s where serious money is needed.
The good news is that there are a number of polo estates on the market. For $3.8m, you can get a handy pad in Buenos Aires province in Argentina with all the usual polo essentials plus hot tub, a party house and a disco with smoke, bubble and snow machines. Or for €20m, there’s Courtown Demesne, County Kildare, Ireland, which includes a 3,000 sq ft helicopter hangar (see sidebar below). More estates are listed below but, buyers beware, the capital outlay on the property is a mere bagatelle next to running the estate and all that entails.