Pony Express: Time

By ARYN BAKER/ISLAMABAD

Full Speed Ahead
Racing for the ball during a match in Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains
Matthieu Paley

After he died, noble roll, a polo pony that once belonged to Asif Zardari, one of Pakistan's most powerful politicians, was buried under a house being built outside the capital Islamabad. That might seem an unusual, even macabre act. But Zubair Idris, owner of the house and inheritor of the pony, says that in a polo-playing family like his, it's tradition to bury under a new home an old, favorite mount that has passed away. Says Idris: "The house gets the strength of the horse."

So does its rider. In Pakistan, polo stands at the nexus of power and money. Long the province of the feudal landlords, who by virtue of their holdings could afford the strings of ponies required to field a team, polo is also the Pakistani army's preferred sport, a legacy of its cavalry origins. Polo ponies, stables, grooms and trainers are subsidized by the military. Officers, and their children, have access to one of the world's most expensive sports for the cost of a few rupees a month. Idris, a sixth-generation polo player, comes from one such family. The country's best players, if not military themselves, are descendants of military families. And for most of Pakistan's 60-year history power has been traded between the feudals and the military. Polo matches are where they meet. It is only inevitable that, in Pakistan, the game of kings is a kingmaker.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pony Express: Time