The Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA) is the governing body for polo

Polo

Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team. Sometimes called, "The Sport of Kings", it was highly popularized by the British. Players score by driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal using a...

 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Republic of Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

. The Federation of International Polo

Federation of International Polo

Federation of International Polo was founded in 1983 with headquarters in Beverly Hills, USA, and currently represents the national polo associations of more than 80 countries. It was the brain child of Marcos Uranga, then President of the Argentine Polo Association. The first World Polo...

 produces the International Rules of Polo through a cooperative agreement with the Hurlingham Polo Association, the Asociación Argentina de Polo http://www.aapolo.com/, plus the United States Polo Association

United States Polo Association

The United States Polo Association is the national governing body for the sport of polo in the United States since 1890. The USPA provides resources to approximately 3600 individual members and 250 polo clubs across the U.S. and Canada, including coordinating and supervising professional polo...

 http://www.us-polo.org/.

Within its jurisdiction, the Hurlingham Polo Association is responsible for implementing the rules of polo and for disciplining player who commit infractions against these rules. It also designates handicaps

Polo handicap

A polo handicap is a system created by Henry Lloyd Herbert, first president of the United States Polo Association, at the founding of the USPA in 1890 so teams could be more evenly matched when using players with varying abilities....

 for each of the 2,000 or so players in the UK. It drew up the first set of formal British rules in 1874, many of which are still in existence.

The association originated as the Hurlingham Polo Committee in 1875 (which drew up the first English rules). The Hurlingham Polo Committee was re-titled as the Hurlingham Club

Hurlingham Club

The Hurlingham Club is an exclusive sports club in Fulham in southwest London, England. The club, founded in 1869, is situated by the River Thames in Fulham, West London, and has a Georgian clubhouse set in of grounds...

 Polo committee and expanded to include representatives on the Council from the Services, the County Polo Association (formed in 1898 to look after the interests of the country clubs and to run the County Cup Tournaments), the three London polo clubs - Hurlingham, Ranelagh and Roehampton

Roehampton Club

The Roehampton Club is an exclusive private members’ sports club in Roehampton in southwest London, England.Roehampton Club is set in of parkland, close to Richmond Park...

- and from all associations within the Empire where polo was being played in 1903. Later, in 1925, the Hurlingham Club Polo Committee was re-designated as the Hurlingham Polo Association.

External links

• The Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA) Website. The governing body for polo in the UK, Ireland, and many other countries.