LOCAL POLO CLUB DEFIES STEREOTYPES

EGYPT MILLS -- There aren't any crumpets served. Nor do highbrow women ceremoniously stomp the divots.

The Little Egypt Polo Club is 10 easy-going folks, nine men and one women, who often play not before royalty, but for a small entourage of truck-driving fans in Carbondale, Ill., or just outside the entrance to Trail of Tears Park, north of Cape Girardeau.

"It's good ol' boy polo," Richard Parrish joked on Sunday while his horse recovered from a chukker, or eight-minute period of play.

Parrish works in purchasing at Southern Illinois University. His teammates include a commodities broker, a retired football coach and a freelance writer.

Little Egypt Polo Club will take anyone with a horse and a desire to learn polo. Almost any horse can learn.

The club plays against teams from Louisville, Ky., Peoria, Ill., Nashville, Tenn., and St. Louis.

Three Missouri men make up Egypt Mills Polo Club, which is part of the Carbondale-based Little Egypt Polo Club.

Local players would like to see more Cape Girardeau-area residents interested in the game, so Dale Watkins and his son Steve are on a membership drive.

Anyone who joins learns from established players and videotapes from the United States Polo Association, which sanctions Little Egypt Polo Club.

The elder Watkins got hooked on polo after playing one game in Carbondale. He and his son ended up leasing nine acres of ground at the intersection of Highways 177 and V, near the entrance to Trail of Tears, transforming the pasture into Cape Girardeau County's only polo grounds.

Weekend visitors to the park often stop to watch the white-clad players knock around what looks like a softball.

Regulation fields are 300 yards long by 150 wide with undefended goals at each end. Four players per team, all on horseback, use their mallets to drive the ball toward the opposing team's goal.

There are six chukkers, and players and their horses rotate between each one.

"It's not as political as horse shows and not as boring as trail riding," Parrish said.

His team plays matches most weekends and usually practices once during the week.