The Kent Target tournament on the 28th and 29th of May had a special guest to present the prizes as the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, turned up to watch the UK Polocrosse team play a match as part of their warm up for the World Cup in a month’s time and also present the prizes for the whole tournament.

Mr Robertson, who lives in Sutton Valence in Kent, came along after the Kent Target Polocrosse Club invited him after reading an interview with him in the equestrian magazine Horse and Hound where he spoke of the need of equestrian sports to appeal more to the entire family and to perhaps involve fathers and husbands more in order to grow as a sport.

Penny Webb of Kent Target Polocrosse Club said “We invited Hugh because polocrosse is such a wonderful family sport, with parents and children often playing on the same team. Parents often take up the sport after their children start playing and they get fed up of just watching and want to have a go themselves. It was great that he could come along and very kind of him to present the prizes for us, it really added something to the event to have such an important guest.”

Mr Robertson said, “I had a great time watching the UK team in action, polocrosse is such an exciting sport to watch, and I wish the team all the best in their World Cup campaign in July.” Mr Robertson presence at a polocrosse event is yet another sign of the amount of work that the UKPA is currently putting into publicising the sport of polocrosse in the UK in general and the World Cup in particular. The UKPA have managed to get a number of stories featured in some of the bigger equestrian publications over the last couple of months and have also done a number of specific pieces for magazines to promote the sport and the World Cup.

All this activity is believed to be two fold in purpose, firstly to make sure that the World Cup is a success, both from a polocrosse and financial point of view, and secondly to grow the sport in the UK, using the World Cup as a spring board to propel the sport forwards and allow future development over the next few years. The UKPA CEO’s Iain Heaton recently urged the UKPA membership to take this one opportunity that they have to show the UK what world class polocrosse looks like and asked the membership to do all they can to help the world cup organising committee deliver a highly successful event.