The Polo Visionary

Patrick Furlong, the Argentinian who re-introduced the game of polo to Hong Kong, is set to broaden the appeal of the sport of kings here in Singapore.

- Karen Tee

When he saddles up, grabs a mallet and races into a polo chukka, nothing else matters. “The adrenaline, the team work, the strategic thinking, it is like playing chess on horseback,” says Kwan Lo.

But most of the all, the chief executive officer of industrial glove manufacturing company Taste International is drawn to the game for the friends he has met all over the world.

Lo, who had always been fascinated by horses, picked up the sport as an adult after he discovered that horse riding was not as “exciting” as he had envisioned. On the polo field, he met Argentinian teammate Patrick Furlong. They became fast friends and went on to compete in tournaments around the world, most recently as part of the Hong Kong amateur polo team.

So when Furlong, who is now based in Singapore, decided to launch a polo academy here last December to make the game more accessible to a wider range of people, his buddy Lo gave his stamp of approval by becoming an investor.

By then, Furlong had already cultivated a number of new polo enthusiasts.

Wu Jiat-Hui, a partner in a consulting firm, first took polo classes after an injury caused her to rein back on her equestrian activities. “Nobody tells you how addictive polo is until you try it,” she says. At around the same time that she got into the game, Colts Polo launched and she signed up her two sons, Alex and Benjamin Pang, aged 10 and 7, for classes. [see separate story]

POLO PIONEER