Horse polo is arguably the oldest recorded team sport in known history, with the first matches being played in Persia over 2500 years ago. Initially thought to have been created by competing tribes of Central Asia, it was quickly taken up as a training method for the King’s elite cavalry. These matches could resemble a battle with up to 100 men to a side.
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British officers themselves re-invented the game of horse polo in 1862 after seeing a horsemanship exhibition in Manipur, India.
The sport of horse polo was introduced into England in 1869, and seven years later sportsman James Gordon Bennett imported it to the United States. After 1886, English and American teams occasionally met for the International Polo Challenge Cup.
Horse polo was on several Olympic games schedules, but was last an Olympic sport in 1936.