Harper polo team - national champions!

Posted 25 February 2011

A group of first and second year Harper Adams students claimed victory at the Akuma National Arena Polo Championships last week.

The three teams representing the University College competed against around 130 other teams from universities across the UK, with the Beginners scooping first place and the Novices seventh.

20-year-old Polo Club Secretary, Pippa Humphrey, was part of the Novice team alongside Chloe Kerr and Matt Thame. She said: “We’re really proud that the Beginners team won the competition as they’ve put a lot of time and money into training.

“It’s been a great experience competing against universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick and it shows the quality of riders that we have at Harper Adams.”

This year, the four day Akuma tournament was held at the Hand Equestrian Centre in Clevedon, and is part of the Schools and Universities Polo Association (SUPA) fixtures list. SUPA was established to promote and develop polo across schools and universities.

The Harper Adams Beginners team, comprising of Leanne Graves, Phil Nichols and Will Parke, also won the NFU cup for the agricultural college challenge and scooped a voucher for a training session at Cirencester Park.

Now the club is preparing for the Akuma National Outdoor Championship in June, with training at Rugby Polo Club every Saturday.

21-year-old Captain, Chloe Kerr, said: “The Harper Adams Polo Club has been running for around four years now and we are hoping to really move things forward and encourage more members.

“We train every week and hire the horses and recently we gained sponsorship from Holland Cooper to buy some new kit.”