Ivor Balding, 96, a Standout During Polo’s Golden Era, Dies
NY Times
vor G. Balding, one of three British brothers who gained international fame as polo stars in the 1930’s, when the sport attracted large crowds and wide press coverage, died on Thursday at his home in Camden, S.C. He was 96.
His death was announced by his family.
Mr. Balding, along with his brothers Barney and Gerald, played polo in the United States throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, mostly at the famed Meadow Brook Club in Westbury on Long Island, then the national center of the sport. Those decades are considered the golden age of polo, as special passenger trains brought spectators from New York for international matches. Though polo has had an aura of wealth and privilege, its origins were hardly rarified: it is believed to be a descendant of a competition among Mongol tribesmen, whose rendition of the sport involved whacking a human head up and down a field.
The endless chukker: 101 years of American polo
