Glenn Sherriff is among a host of New Zealand’s elite polo players assembling in Clevedon this week in pursuit of the top honours at the NZ Polo Open, with a common theme among his talented string of ponies being the thoroughbred.

Originally hailing from Gisborne, Sherriff has been playing polo professionally for well over a decade, representing New Zealand on the global stage and domestically on a number of occasions. Over the Kiwi summer, Sherriff and his partner, Lottie Lamacraft, are based in Clevedon and play out of the Hololio Polo Club.

“I got into polo through my father who used to play, I was kicking around from a young age riding horses and as soon as I was strong enough to swing a stick, I started practicing and eventually playing,” Sherriff said.

“I stuck with it and after I left school, I worked on a sheep and beef farm for a family who were big polo people, so I was able to work and play. It was a great help in staying in the game.

“I started going to England and working and grooming over there, and now I’ve been going from New Zealand to England every summer back and forth since about 2007.”

Thoroughbreds have been a consistent presence in Sherriff’s team, with their early education in racing stables an appeal during the busy season.

“I’ve got a big history with the thoroughbreds. Since I started playing the majority of the horses we had were thoroughbreds,” he said. “They were always good for the sport because they’ve got good agility, and the ones that have the good temperament just thrive in polo.

“They are quite accessible as well, you can get a young thoroughbred that might not have been good enough for racing pretty inexpensively, but when they arrive, they’re broken in and know how to be ridden. Whereas, if you go down the breeding path, it’s a long process of time and money to get to that same stage.

“The thoroughbreds make that aspect very easy, because you’re already halfway there and you just have to get on to training them for polo.”

While Sherriff thoroughly enjoys playing them himself, he also sells a number of the high-level performers to fellow New Zealanders and overseas.

“I’ve had quite a few over the years that stood out, but I mostly I try to retrain them and then depending on how good they are, I will try to sell them back into polo,” he said. “For the outstanding ones, I’ll try to sell them overseas or take them to England with me to sell.

“There have been some cracking horses, and of the horses I’ve retrained, there is a very high percentage that go into polo very naturally, and some are real superstars which is very cool.”

The Open is the pinnacle of the season in New Zealand and Sherriff has found plenty of success at the event, winning on three occasions. This week, he will play for Swift Roofing in the High Goal Teams competition, alongside Thomas Hunt, Indi Bennetto and Harry Jnr Semenoff.

“I’ve played it for about the last 12 years or so, I’ve won three times and made a few finals that I didn’t win,” he said.

“Our league plays one game on Tuesday and one on Wednesday, then if we make it to the semis, we’ll play on Saturday and then everyone plays on Sunday. We’ll definitely have three games, but hopefully four over the week.

“In our league games, the chukkas are seven and a half minutes long, so we may play one horse for five minutes and they’ll come back at a later stage of the game for a couple of minutes. They’ll probably all do roughly one chukka each, but not all at the same time.

“On the finals days, we’ll probably make a shorter list of five or six horses, with the best ones coming on earlier in the game and coming back later, so they’re there at that important stage.

“This is our big showcasing part of the season, it’s what everyone aims for here. Everyone tries to prep themselves and their horses for this week, everything that has led up to this.”

The New Zealand Polo Open is open to the public for Finals Day this Sunday, 16th of February, with tickets available to purchase through their website, nzpoloopen.com. Hosted at the Auckland Polo Club in Clevedon, there is General Admission and a number of hospitality options for all ages.