The game of polocrosse traces its origins to the National School of Equitation in Roehampton Vale near London.  It began in the 1930's as an exercise for young riders to help develop their riding skills.

This early form of "polo-crosse" was played indoors with two players a side.  The goals were elongated basketball nets.  The sticks were old polo sticks whose mallets were replaced with a squash racquet head with a shallow string net.  The object was to scoop up the ball, ride with it to the end of the arena and drop it into the net to score a goal.

The game was brought to Australia in 1938 by Mr & Mrs Edward Hirst of Sydney and, in conjunction with experienced polo player, Alf Pitty, extensively modified as an outdoor sport.

They designed a polocrosse field 160 yards long by 60 yards wide with three separate areas: a goal scoring area at each end 30 yards long and the centre area 100 yards long.  The goal posts were 8 feet apart and had an 11 yard semi-circle in front of each goal.  To score a goal the ball had to be thrown from within the goal scoring area but from outside the 11 yard semicircle, through the goal posts at any height.  To make the game more open, they decided a player could not ride from the centre area into the goal scoring area with the ball in their possession and score a goal.

A polocrosse team consists of 6 players divided into two sections of three, each of which plays alternate periods of time called "chukkas".  This allows each section to have a rest whilst the other plays, so that only one horse is required per rider.  A game has up to eight chukkas, each of eight minutes.

The No. 1 in each section is the only player permitted to score goals for the team, the No. 3 the only player to defend the goal and the No. 2 is restricted to the centre area.

The popularity of polocrosse grew after World War II, with the game spreading from the Sydney area to the rest of NSW and other states in the '50's and 60's.  It has now spread to many countries around the world including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the UK, Canada, the USA and several others.  The International Polocrosse Council was formed in 1976.

Download a copy of the rules (Acrobat pdf format).

For details of a great range of polocrosse products, please visit the polocrosse section.

For details about adjusting polocrosse racquet nets, go to our information  page.

For information about what's happening in the world of polocrosse, go to the Polocrosse Worldwide site.