Rather than watch the Trooping the Colour on such a beautiful early summer’s day we took the dogs and our very best demeanours to the Gloucestershire Festival of Polo at the Beaufort Polo Club, near Westonbirt. This annual event’s web site notes it to be one of the mainstays of the South West’s social calendar so, never having been to a polo event before, this two-day festival seemed likely to be a fun taster as they advertised top-class polo as well as a tented shopping village and a traditional funfair. We had seen the Festival advertised when we visited Tetbury a few weeks’ ago and we thought then we’d probably go along as we enjoy agricultural and country shows. And it was fun. The show ground was busy but not too crowded, we managed a fence-side view of the play and although the car park held some pretty impressive machinery the other festival-goers weren’t overly aristocratic or foreign-riche as we had expected, although there were some sophisticated, classily understated, beautifully-dressed people in the VIP enclosures and far too many tight, white jeans in the public areas. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon sat on the grass with our first (and last) Cotswold Wagyu beef burger lunch and rather expensive but very pleasant (plastic) glass of English sparkling wine for her and a (plastic) tumblerful of Pimms for me. We watched the celebrity polo match (sponsored by top people matchmaking firm Gray & Farrer) including Victoria Pendleton, Anais Gallagher and a couple of Made in Chelsea stars then we watched some really impressive horsemanship in an international match between England and Ireland. A number of the ‘ponies’ were actually finely-tuned ex-racehorse athletes which are ridden at breakneck speed with the left hand whilst the right swings an oversized wooden mallet to hit a small hard white ball towards a goal at each end of the field. There are complex riding rules to try to avoid injury to horse or rider in what is a high speed contact sport but unfortunately much of the action was often well away from the spectators. Our very upper class-sounding commentator did his best to describe the action for us first-timers in between much thanking of our magnificent sponsors. After each few minute ‘chukkas’ the players/riders change mounts as the horses need to rest after their fast and furious action which creates a few minutes break in the action, much like boxing.  I imagine one would need a small stable of ponies to play in the top class of this sport so clearly one for the rich, or rich sponsor. Polo is described as the ‘king of sports’ and after the weekend we read that at the second day of the Festival Prince William, fresh from Trooping the day before, played in the Maserati-sponsored charity match whilst Kate, George and little Charlotte played together in the sun near to where we had sat the previous day.