Hoofing It With the Well-Heeled : The Trendy Attraction Is Arena Polo but More Often Than Not This Glamour Sport Is a Sideshow for Its Chic Clientele and Star-Struck Patrons

The American Polo League championship game between our very own Los Angeles Colts and the hated Houston Longhorns was getting tense in the indoor arena at the L .A. Equestrian Center. So it was time for a quartet of party animals standing by the rail to send the chauffeur for another bottle of Taittinger. The man in leather and the woman in fur, who were drinking with a man in fur and a woman in leather, were glued to the action, which happened to be in the stands, where an actual Hollywood celebrity was sitting with her boyfriend.

On the field, the Colts’ Smokin’ Joe Henderson, a South African now living here, was steering his chestnut pony toward a brick wall to hit a small yellow ball with a long wooden mallet. A horse ridden by Houston’s Dan Healy, who reportedly once played for the Colts under an alias, was on a collision course with Henderson. But Henderson, or his horse, pulled up smartly. Digging the ball out of the corner, Henderson wielded his mallet over his helmet and sent a shot toward the goal, a move that created near hysteria on the part of PA announcer Peter Cullen.

“It’s going! . . . It’s going! . . . It’s goooooooing JUST WIDE!” he screamed.

The crowd went “ ooooooooow !” and the couples drinking champagne turned around to see whether anybody scored or if Sylvester Stallone had finally shown up. Stallone is to the Colts what Jack Nicholson is to the Lakers, but he was nowhere to be seen at the championship match, so the stargazers had to make do with the likes of TV personalities Elizabeth Montgomery and Robert Foxworth and rocker Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees.

Not everybody was either watching polo or watching the celebs. There was a couple who were watching the couples watching the celebrities. Cindy Forward and Dennis Page, polo enthusiasts, horse lovers and also dedicated people watchers, were fascinated by the social whirl, the nonstop preening and parading by members of the audience.

“I come to see the people,” said Forward, who lives in Big Tujunga.

“Have you ever seen as many furs indoors in your life?” Page added.

“This has become the social event,” Forward said.

“Everybody used to come to see Sly,” Page interjected.

“It’s where you go to see and be seen,” Forward said. “I spend 40% of my time mingling and watching others.”

In only three years, arena polo has become more entertaining in L. A. than “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Most games are sellouts, a TV contract, according to a spokesman, is in “serious development,” international franchises are a possibility and advertisers are going wild over the demographics: The free four-color program features ads for Porsche Targas, million-dollar Malibu estates and Caribbean cruises that ordinary sports fans cannot afford.

Arena polo is being sold the same way Ralph Lauren sells Polo shirts and cologne. The operative words are glamour, sophistication and excitement. “These are not the people you’d see at a hockey game,” said Dolenz, who has played amateur polo for a year. These are people who stand in lines between chukkers (a period of play) to buy $3.50 shots of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Or substitute a Dove Bar for a power lunch. Indeed, God’s gift to the concessionaire is six chukkers, which translates into FIVE intermissions.

Polo always has been a hot ticket for the in crowd, an elitist sport in which only the rich could make the payments on strings of ponies and expensive lessons. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Hollywood discovered polo. Major stars like Clark Gable and Ronald Coleman not only attended outdoor games but played them as well on fields in Santa Barbara and at Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades. The lure was fast horses, beautiful women and high living in an environment that was like an exclusive country club.

Arena polo attracts fans for those reasons plus another that’s equally important to people who wear small fortunes to games. “People feel safe here,” said Ron Mracky, a spokesman for the league. The Equestrian Center is not Dodger Stadium or the Sports Arena. Unwashed children aren’t begging to park your Mercedes on their front lawns. The guy in the seat behind your kid isn’t shouting dirty words.

“They don’t have to contend with 60,000 screaming people,” said Bob Edwards, who sells souvenir T-shirts at a large stand outside the arena. Or, more specifically, “I sell 100% cotton, woven Ts for $18 that Nordstrom’s gets $29 to $35 for,” he said.

The Equestrian Center is like an isolated fort, accessible only through one entrance, guarded from behind by the hills of Griffith Park, white horse fences protecting its perimeter. Nearly two hours before the game, stretch limousines began arriving. They drove under a massive wooden archway at the entrance to the grounds and down a winding path to the Center’s brightly lit, manicured complex. Expensive cars were queuing up at valet parking. The crowd came early to see a celebrity match or eat dinner or shop at Dominion Saddlery.

“A lot of people come from a long way off, like Orange County and Long Beach,” said Judy Quarles, who runs the shop. Quarles stocks items like leather saddles and Pakistani polo mallets, but her best sellers on this night were souvenir sweat shirts and gloves for women. “It’s been chilly the last three games,” she said.

For $20, you could get a general admission ticket and a buffet. Roast beef and chicken were being consumed by some 100 people in a room called Horses. Next door, however, the Polo Club was serving up cracked crab and calamary cocktail for an estimated 400 persons over two seatings. Reservations were necessary a week ahead of time. While the Horses was open to the public, only season-ticket and box-seat holders were permitted to pay the $21.95 for the Polo Club buffet. That’s in addition to their tickets, which range from $165 to $125 for 11 games.

A man wearing a velvet cowboy hat and more silver buckles than Michael Jackson walked out of the club and stopped at a table set up outside the arena. There, he filled out a free entry form to win a Cadillac Allante for a week. On the PA, a tape kept repeating, every few seconds, like those announcements at the Las Vegas airport: “Welcome to the Equestrian Center. After the game, enjoy the ‘Seventh Chukker,’ dancing, drinking and entertainment till midnight.”

There was a steady flow of foot traffic in and out of the arena during the game. Mracky estimated the crowd at a standing-room-only 5,000, but a large percentage seemed to be on the move. Always, people lingered at the two exits, making it difficult to enter without spilling someone’s cocktail. Inside the semi-enclosed arena was a curious aroma, the molecular fusion of women’s perfume and horse manure. Barmen in dinner jackets sold mixed drinks. Fans in the packed bleachers put a $5 cushion between them and the cold aluminum benches. There wasn’t a jabbering vendor hawking chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, but there should have been.

In the ring, which is the size of a football field, ponies were kicking up clods of dirt. Dennis Page’s attention turned back to the game. Expert horsemen on well-trained animals were ripping across the earth like the Pony Express. Page could feel the pounding hoofs. “There’s nothing like being this close to the action,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons this game’s getting so popular.”

Another is the caliber of play. The players, as dashing as Errol Flynn and considered some of the best in the world, need the finesse necessary in field polo plus the bone-jarring muscle required for hockey. Players and horses take punishment along the walls. Both have been dazed during games. At one match, a pony keeled over dead and the game was interrupted while a tractor removed the body. Still, said Dolenz, “The horses are treated like gold dust.”

Although it’s only a paper league--L. A. is the only city where games are played and players become Longhorns or New York Thoroughbreds by pulling on the appropriate jersey--fans get emotionally involved in the so-called “rivalries” and appreciate the action. “You have to play the game yourself to realize how good these guys are,” Dolenz said.

Monkee fans will be interested to hear that Dolenz was wearing a cowboy hat and boots, jodhpurs and a red polo team jacket. He also scored a goal in the celebrity game, which was a disappointment to celebrity watchers. Only Dolenz, Jameson Parker--or was it Parker Stevenson?--and William Devane were riding for the celebs. In fact, the whole celeb scene got to be a letdown after a while. By the middle of the championship game, Stallone still hadn’t been spotted. Mracky, the Colts’ spokesman, was trying to provide alternatives for the media, mentioning that U. S. Polo Assn. president Donald D. Little was in the crowd.

But that did not appease Cesare Bonazza, photo journalist from Milan, Italy, who was shooting an assignment for Celebrity Press magazine on horses and celebrities. “Nobody’s here,” Bonazza complained. “Stallone’s box is empty. John Forsythe’s box is empty. I thought I saw Belinda Carlisle but I’m not positive.”

Bonazza denied he was a paparazzi, those bloodthirsty free-lance photographers who like to hide in bathrooms to snap celebs. “There are no known paparazzi here,” he said. They don’t attach themselves to polo matches like they do to trendy restaurants, he said, “because the glamorous fashion of the night is not here,” which would certainly surprise a lot of polo fans.

A man in a blazer came up to Bonazza and whispered, “Richard Alatorre’s over there,” and pointed to the L. A. city councilman. Bonazza frowned. “I want Stallone, not politicians,” he said. “I heard Stallone is back from shooting in Israel and will definitely be here. I’m going back in for my second look. If he’s not there, I’m leaving.”

Stallone never appeared. It was later learned that he had gone directly from Israel to Thailand to finish shooting “Rambo III.” So Bonazza left, missing the conclusion of the Colts’ 10-8 win over the Longhorns and the disco party afterward in the Horses. But if he wants to know how it all turned out, Robin Leach will have it soon on “Entertainment Tonight.”