For the Love of Blodd and Money : At a Polo Field in Burbank, the Classes Meet for Serious Horseplay

It’s that time of year again. A new season. The smell of hot dogs, burgers, soft pretzels, tacos, beer, white wine, beef Wellington, prime rib of beef and duck a la orange is in the air.

Professional indoor polo, now in its fourth year at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, caters to a crowd that ranges from mink-clad, pardon-me-would-you-happen-to-have-any-Grey-Poupon elitists to the dog-gobbling masses. From malt liquor to Perrier, you can have it your way at the 3,500-seat Equidome on Saturday nights.

And like the crowd, the indoor game itself is a mishmash of prim-and-proper polo and roller derby. Take traditional polo, squeeze it into an arena the size of a football field, put up hockey boards, throw in six 1,200-pound horses galloping at speeds up to 25 m.p.h. with mallet-wielding riders on board and you have, as one player put it, “one hellacious game.”

It’s a game middle-class America can enjoy.

“It’s like hockey, except instead of skates, you’re on a horse that has a mind of its own,” says Tom Goodspeed, captain of the Equidome’s home team--the Los Angeles Colts. “Like hockey, it has the speed, the checking and the stick work.”

And, of course, lots of bashing, bumping and some cheap shots.

“One time I was heading toward goal,” Goodspeed says, “and another player came toward me at an angle. I slowed down to maintain control of the ball, but the other player hit into me just behind my saddle. He knocked my horse 10 yards and I went down like a bullet. I took all the shock in my back. I had numbness through my arms and legs.”

What he had was a broken back. But after an eight-month layoff, he recovered and began playing again.

Another time, Goodspeed broke three ribs and his hip when he fell off his mount just in time to be run over by three other horses.

American sports fans usually have a hard time resisting this kind of stuff.

If anyone can lead indoor polo to the public at-large, Goodspeed probably can. Unlike many professional polo players, he didn’t grow up on an estate in the country. He was raised in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wis.

“Tom has done everything by the seat of his pants,” says teammate Dan Healy. “Polo was a hobby he picked up on his own. He paid for everything himself.

“But he’s one of the best polo players in the world.”

Goodspeed, 33, started riding horses at the insistence of his three sisters when he was 12. A year later, he tried polo.

“As soon as I tried it--it was like a sickness,” he says. “My parents tried everything to get me into junior golf. They pleaded with me to play football--anything but this craziness with the horses.

“I used to stand on the street corner with my polo boots on waiting for a bus that would take me to the stables. Me and four other guys had to ride that bus with 50 girls. We received nothing but ridicule from friends and even the girls. I always worried that my football buddies would see me waiting on the corner for that bus from the stable.

“To make it worse,” Goodspeed says, “the name of the riding stables was Joy Farm Riding Club. It sounded a little feminine.”

When he was in high school, Goodspeed talked his dad into getting him a horse. But he had to pay for the pony’s groom and board at the stables.

Goodspeed ended up working at Joy Farm, pitching hay and shoveling manure.

He had to quit the football team his senior year when he got a job in a fruit market. He stocked potatoes and stuffed boxes in garbage bins to earn enough money to keep his polo-playing habit alive.

After high school, he went to the University of Connecticut to play collegiate polo and get a degree in animal science. Goodspeed led Connecticut to three straight national championships from 1972 to ‘74, loading hay trucks and fixing broken water pipes along the way.

One summer, Goodspeed painted boat bottoms at the Oakdale Yacht Club on Long Island, N.Y. While he scraped barnacles, other polo players were sipping champagne on the decks of luxury yachts nearby. He played polo whenever he could.

“I learned to do for myself,” he says. “I was a black sheep in my family because I was a polo player. My father thought I had a screw loose.”

Conversely, Goodspeed’s teammate, Dan Healy, began playing polo because his grandfather, S.A. Healy, who owned a construction business in Illinois, played polo. His dad, Thomas Healy, the company’s chairman and president, also played the game.

Says Healy: “I was lucky enough to grow up near a polo club where we had stables of our own horses. We had a polo field on our property. Or we could ride over to the club.”

Goodspeed and Healy became teammates on the Colts when Goodspeed came to the L.A. Equestrian Center in January of 1985. Goodspeed is the general manager of the LAEC and Healy is the manager of the Polo Club there.

“I’ve managed other riding clubs and they do not want a lot of people coming around. They like it private,” Healy says. “Polo has always been an elitist sport. But this kind of polo--arena polo--is for the people. You don’t have to wear a mink here.”

Which suits Goodspeed fine. “We want people to come here,” he says. “Spectators can see everything that’s going on in arena polo. There’s more contact, a lot more action, people can see the horses snorting. It’s a whole new approach to a traditional game.

“Once we break through some of the preconceived notions of polo--that it’s elitist--it will become more popular. This is something everyone can enjoy and relate to.”