The Polo School has been going from strength to strength, and now caters for a wide range of ages and experience. We have a growing membership, from the ages of 5 upwards, so if you would like to visit and see us in action, please do contact us via the office on 01483 272828.

Eddie Kennedy, Director of Polo

Born in 1959 beside one of the oldest polo clubs in the world "The All Ireland Polo Club" in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland Eddie spent his entire youth working with not just polo but also hunting and racing as well. At nineteen years of age he started working in the film business as a film horse stuntman, featuring in several films doubling for actors including Michael Cain and David Soul.

Eddie has always combined his polo career with with an art career and in 1986 that is what brought him to the UK. However marriage, kids and the need to get back to horses saw Eddie doing less and less art and returning to polo, working at various clubs until being offered the opportunity to work with the great Mexican 10 Goaler, Memo Gracida for the Maple Leaf high goal team which he then managed for 5 years.

At its peak that team had almost one hundred of the best horses in the world. As the Maple Leaf string was about to be sold off a new patron arrived in the UK in the form of Prince Jeffri of Brunei who bought not only the string of horses but the Coworth Park Polo complex as well, to which he added another large number of horses bringing the total to over 200.

This was a great opportunity of management for Eddie as I worked with a great cross section of the worlds best polo players including all 7 of the famous Heguy brothers - all of whom were rated at 10 goals then. We hosted and mounted all eight players in one of the only 40 goal matches ever to be played in the UK, adding Piki Alberdi to the Heguy line up.

Eddie's next challenge was going to Dubai to be responsible for the completion and setting up of a brand new polo and equestrian club. This position involved everything - from sourcing and purchasing horses for polo and jumping, building polo fields and synthetic riding surfaced arenas to creating the business plan and operations manual for the entire club which included a restaurant, a spa, a gym and a pool. Eddie then returned to the UK in the summer of 2007

Matthew Pannell

Matthew - 'Matt' - Pannell, will be a familiar name to everyone who follows events in the world of Polo: a Young England team member, he's a former winner of the Queen's Cup, as well as a British Open finalist (both 1997).

Matt's international polo career began at the tender age of 13. As an experienced rider he was selected to go to Argentina to play in a Pony Club event. His involvement with the Pony Club flourished, going on to play Gannon with great success. He was then selected as part of the HPA 'fast track' scheme to bring on young players and in only a few years had played through all levels of the game. This will be Matt's fifth season at Hurtwood Park Polo Club.