Polo Fever: Can Fort Worth Catch It?

Which of the following doesn’t describe a Fort Worth attraction? a)The Stockyards, b)Billy Bob’s, or c)professional polo? You could probably answer that one in your sleep, right? Any Cowtown native worth his weight in chili knows Ralph Lauren is a sissy.

Well, the times they are a changing, y’all. Come this April 12, dirt and hooves will be flying in the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum as two teams of three men each compete in an indoor version of the civilized game played by men known to ride like Indians and think like chess players. The Fort Worth professional indoor polo team, the Argonauts, will be representing one of six cities in a new league that could expand to ten teams by 1987. In addition to the Argonauts, the National Polo League will include the Houston Cavalry, San Francisco Saracens, Chicago Cossacks, Los Angeles Lancers, and New York Blues. The teams will play games during April and May in Fort Worth and Houston.

The new league is the brainchild of Bil Walton, a Modesto, California, polo player who is no stranger to the Willow Bend set; his father. Dr. Robert Wilton; and Jesse Upchurch, a wealthy Fort Worth businessman and polo enthusiast who is providing most of the league’s financial backing.

“There’s a big horse population in this area,” he says. “The response has been very, very good so far. I think it will catch on very fast; people just seem to get hooked on the game. Most people think a person has to be wealthy to play the game, but it’s just not that way anymore. While the sport still tends to draw an upscale group of people, it’s actually as cheap as sailing or snow-skiing.”

In the past, polo players have had to own their own horses. But Walton says now polo enthusiasts can lease the horses they ride in polo matches.

The Argonauts hope to market the game by selling large blocks of tickets to Fort Worth corporations. A VIP box costs $150 a season (five games), and a regular season ticket sells for $75 a season, or $15 a game. As D went to press, Walton said 450 of the 900 VIP seats had been sold and about 500 regular season tickets had been purchased. Another 4,000 reserved seats have yet to be sold, he said.