Sweetfeet Ladies Polo Team 2008 Season

First Tournament of the Season - Watership Down 24/25 May

The Sweetfeet Ladies had their first Tournament of the Year, a low-key affair, to get things going for the major tournaments later this summer.

Somehow the SF Ladies team was sporting a couple of gentlemen players, but I was confident that the team skipper, Kirsten, knew what she was doing.

Our players were: Kirsten de la Beck Ladebeck (Skipper), Aurora Eastwood, Steve May and Mark Holmes.

The sky was blue, the turf of the pitch a glorious emerald green for the first game on Saturday, and everything was looking glorious, despite a howling gale

Sweetfeet got off to a fantastic start, quickly leveling the score (we started a goal down, due to handicap difference), then disaster! The emerald green of the Watership grass, turned to crimson, as the beautiful Aurora crashed the ground, blood gushing from a gaping wound, delivered by the mallet of the dastardly Hugo. Play was suspended whilst we debated who should take Aurora to hospital, who, in the end, got bored waiting and drove herself.

This left us a man down, someone jokingly said that I should take Aurora's place, but cunningly, I had left all my kit at home in Devon, and so, just when you need a prince to come over the horizon on a white charger, our very own real Prince, Constantine, came to the rescue, and volunteered his services, and was soon mixing it with the pros on the pitch for the rest of the game.

Losing Aurora meant that our handicap advantage was lost, and as valliantly as the Sweetfeet Team played they couldn't quite overcome the handicap disadvantage, and lost by 1 goal.

Day 2 the conditions were as grey as the team shirts, with a constant drizzle making conditions slippery under hoof, but the day and our spirits were brightened by Aurora being back in the team, with only a discreet stitch or two, to show for her wounding from the previous day.

This time Sweetfeet showed their true mettle, and trounced the opposition 11-4 - Sweet victory!

The prizes were handed out by our charming host, Lady Madeleine, and the winners could hardly contain their excitement at winning a fantastic pair of Crocs!

The next appearance of the Sweetfeet Ladies Polo Team will be at Ascot Park 2/3 August. This time the testosterone levels should be lower as it will be an all Ladies competetion.

Sweetfeet Shoes Ladies Polo The Team

The principal 4 players are as follows:

Kirsten de la Beck (-2) (Team Manager)

(This is Kirsten pictured on the left)

30, is an accomplished international player. She has played polo in Argentina, across Europe and the UK. As a former member of the German Junior Olympic Hockey squad Kirsten’s ball skills were unquestionable. And a keen hunter, horse skills existed long before Kirsten came to the game of polo during her University years. Her first stick and ball took place at Ascot Park in 1996. She played consistently, but privately, really more for the fun of the game than competitively and without a handicap. After a critical health set back Kirsten came back into the sport 3 years ago with excellent coaching and encouragement from David Heaton-Ellis. In January 2007 she played in Klosters in the first ladies’ snow polo tournament.

Kirsten runs K Law Solicitors, a niche private law firm that looks after high net worth private clients and small to medium sized corporations for commercial, property and tax transactions. She lives and works in Bagshot Park and plays at Watership Down Polo and Cirencester Polo Club.

Lorna Mackay (0) (Team Co-Manager)

Lorna lives in Wormleighton, just outside Banbury, Warwickshire. Her local papers are Banbury Guardian and Leamington Courier. She is a freelance caterer/polo playing, future wife of a very busy man!!

Lorna has always been fascinated by polo as a young woman, and when her father sadly died in 2002, she went to Africa on a horse safari to just get away from it all at home. She used to play lacrosse for Berkshire, so when they suggested they play polocrosse, she jumped at the chance! She was hooked and started to look up UK clubs until a friend said, if she was that hooked on polocrosse, she should try the real thing. Alas, at the time Lorna couldn't afford it, so just sighed and contented herself with watching the big games at Guards and Cowdray. Then a year to the day practically of my father dying, Richard, her boyfriend, now fiancée, said he was so fed up with hearing Lorna go on about polo, that he bought her 10 lessons with John Horswell for her 27th birthday!! Unbelievable!

She cautiously approached Coworth Park one Tuesday in July 2003, dressed in all the wrong kit - oversized hunting hat, short mucking out boots, jodphurs.... - and met John and Eduardo Amaya. John, having sized up the outfit and riding, duly handed the poor girl over to Eduardo saying she's yours! Having ridden for the first half an hour, Eduardo handed me a stick and explained what to do..... et voila!! It was the happiest moment of my life, cantering up and down an exquisitely green, smooth field, on a gem of a pony, hitting this white ball that was to later transform my life! I hadn't smiled or felt like that in the whole year since the death of her father- it was like new fire in the belly with a grin from ear to ear!

Lorna continued to have lessons/chukkas with Horswell, until she finally went to Argentina to stay with Eduardo and never looked back. She has since spent about 14 months there, staying in Nov-
Dec and Feb-March, bringing out fellow friends/polo players and has found her second home and many very good friends. Lorna says: "...and the softly swaying pampas spilling out endlessly in front of you with the promise of afternoon chukkas awaiting you....how can one not feel re-charged and invigorated??!"

Lorna's polo accomplishments, she herslef says: "Having played mostly in Argentina, I haven't really got any "cups" to show. Last year at the Nationals, our team, Offchurch Bury managed to beat a team 16-0, which was quite fun! I also went up from a -2 to a -1 in the first year of playing, something Brigadier John Wright, from Tidworth, said was not to be sniffed at - I don't know if that's true, it just felt good. Other than that, I just love this game!

Rosie Ross (1) (Team Coach)

She writes: I am a 1 goal professional whose has played and ridden horses all my life. My job in England consists of playing professionally for a number of patrons in the UK. I also manage a polo yard of around 60 horses based at The Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. We also make and produce young horses into polo. Some of my qualifications include being a HPA qualified club instructor to this end I teach most of the summer season when I am not playing, with a large group of regular clients. I have also played in Europe mainly Germany and Holland over the last few years also New Zealand where I represented England.

Sophie Heaton-Ellis (1) (Team Captain)

Sophie says: “Started playing polo in the pony club aged 12. Awarded HPS scolarship to newzealand in 96 and won Newzealand classic 12 goal. A member of Cirencester Park Polo Club and have won Gerald Balding 8goal and Kingscote Cup 6 Goal working for Rob Cudmore in The Lovelocks and Flying Pigs Polo Teams. Won European Championships in 2003 playing for England Ladies. Have played in Pakistan, Germany and Ireland. Now based in Berkshire playing and running my own livery yard.”