Stallion
Colour: Chestnut
Breed: Unknown
Type: Polo-bred (Thought to be Thorougbred x Welsh cross)
Foaled: 1893
Height: 13.2 hands

Sire: Rosewater
Dam: 142 Lady Florence

LORD POLO a chestnut colt, foaled in 1893. Bred by Sir H.F. de Trafford, Baronet, Trafford Park, Manchester and registered by Sir Walter Gilbey, Baronet, Elsenham Hall, Essex, in the Polo Pony Stud Book Volume 5 (1898-1899), page 28, as Polo Pony stallion 135. He stood 13.2 hands high. Volume 5 includes an illustration of, “Lord Polo.” Winner of First Prize at the Royal Show, at Birmingham. The illustration is a photograph of an oil painting dated 1899.

At the first show of the Polo Pony Society, on the Ranelagh Club Grounds on Wednesday, June 5th, 1895, in Class 1, (Stallion other than Eastern), the second prize of 10 went to Sir Humphrey de Trafford, for Lord Polo, his sire Rosewater took first prize. Lord Polo also secured the first prize of 10 in Class 8, Colt, Filly or Gelding, (Foaled in 1893, likely to make a Polo or Riding Pony, and), that will not in the opinion of the judges exceed 14.2 hands when full grown. There were seventeen entries.

The show report, for Class 1 states. The winner, Rosewater, is the model of a sire for Polo Ponies . . . His son, Lord Polo, a chestnut with one white heel, was only two-years-old; his second at so early an age being highly creditable. A compact colt with a good look out, deep through his heart, and with good bone, he might have a little better action, and in Class 8 . . . . the excellence of the two-year-olds as a class was remarkable. Lord Polo and his two stable companions, Confidential and Lady Robert, made a grand trio to come from any one Stud. Confidential is a beautiful filly, bay in colour, with good shoulders and quarters, and she is a better mover than Lord Polo . . .

His dam Lady Florence, grey, 13.3 hands high, was foaled in 1878. The Polo Pony Stud Book gives her the number 142, and Joseph Palmer in, “The Dartmoor Pony. A History of the Breed,” says of Lady Florence, . . . . The story as told by Wynne Davies in his Welsh Ponies and Cobs, is that Sir Humphrey de Trafford bought her ‘on the Welsh Border’ and that she was ‘thought to be Welsh’. . . . Lady Flo’s descent may have been misty, but her achievements are clear enough. At all events, at nine years old (1887) she carried off the Trent Steeplechase, the Ladies Plate at Southport (carrying 12 stone over 2 miles on the flat) and many other races at Manchester and Southport. Then just to demonstrate that speed wasn’t the whole story, she came south to try her hand in the jumping event at Ranelagh. She won, of course. Just thirteen hands and three inches ‘ competing against horses’, as the stud book points out; a Victorian ‘super-stroller’. It is a pity that we have no portrait of Lady Florence.

At the 1900 London Show of the Polo Pony Society, (held in conjuction with the Hunter’s Improvement Society), Lord Polo won the First Prize, (of £7), in Class 21, Stallions, not exceeding 13 hands 2 inches.
In 1901 he won, a second Prize in London, (the judges thought it an indifferent class), and a second at Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely.
However in 1902, Lord Polo faired better, in a report by Sir Richard D. Green-Price, Baronet, he said, ” . . . . there is not much to choose between Lord Polo and Hermit. Both are excellent types of the powerful and lengthy little animals that should be pre-eminent in this Class, (Class 21) . . . and a report by Mr. E.H. Barlow, a Hunter Judge, seeing the Polo Pony Breeding Classes for the first time:- “. . . . For stallions not exceeding 13.2, Lord Polo was the winner ; a sharp, elegant horse of a riding character, he is got by Rosewater, and is quite the sort to sire riding ponies. . . . .” And in 1903, Lord Polo ten years old, tried again for the third time, and won.
Lady Polo is probably the best known of Lord Polo’s sons and daughters, foaled in 1898 she won, (in 1900 a class for two year olds), at the London Spring Show. She was in turn dam to Marquis, who later was chosen to play for England, in the International Matches between America and England at Hurlingham, (Lord Polo was noted as having sired progeny who won, “eleven prizes and reserves,” between 1900 and 1908 in statistics produced by the Polo and Riding Pony Society).

Later he was brought to Devon, to the Tavistock area, where he ran on the moor, as Joseph Palmer says, “It must be remembered that Lord Polo was actually, ‘on the moor’, his control, even his surveillance, at the best sketchy ; his whole life a world away from the strictly regimented, closely fenced existence of his fellow sires . . . He ran on the moor. It cannot be said too often . . . he would have had his own herd of mares.” His first recorded foal, “off the moor,” was born in 1905, he must have arrived sometime during 1903 or 1904.

Lord Polo’s registered produce, from 1905 on, were said to be Dartmoors:
1905 – bay Rose Marie
1906 – bay Marie Rose
1907 – whole coloured bay Diana II
1910 – whole coloured ch. Heather Mixture
1910 – chestnut Cup Moss
1913 – bay Sunbeam III

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