THE MALLET MYSTIQUE

Although she grew up in the shadow of the Palace of Versailles, Caroline Anier, arguably the world’s best female polo player, was not to the manner born. Her middle-class family couldn’t dream of keeping horses, and only an extravagant birthday present--a booklet of gift certificates for 10 lessons--enabled her to take her first girlhood rides. The booklet ran empty, but a series of happy accidents put her back in the saddle.

Anier, then 13, came across a stray mare during a sojourn in the French countryside. “When I returned the horse, my reward was that I could ride it for free on weekends,” recalls Anier, now 35, as she tramps through the mud and scattered hay at her Palm Springs horse ranch, Tri-Valley Polo Club. A few years later, a romance with a polo aficionado led to a trainer’s job at a polo club. “At first, I wouldn’t play polo because I thought it was too tough on the horses. And I didn’t like training them, either. I was taught to break horses by Argentines, and I didn’t know until I came to California that you could train a horse without beating it.”

The holder of a four-goal outdoor rating--the highest for any woman player (the top rating of 10 is held by fewer than a dozen elite international male players)--Anier splits her time between France and California. “I play during the summer months in France,” she says, her English richly colored by her native tongue. “Because it is too cold to play in Europe, I come here for the winter tournaments. And to be with my horses.” She stoops to examine the foreleg of a mare that suffered a bowed tendon during a match.

Playing alongside men in elite tournaments, says Anier, “is a constant challenge. They are stronger, and you need to be powerful to play this sport.” But she has more than held her own. She has led her coed team to two victories in the Governor’s Cup, the banner event of the Palm Springs winter season.

Anier’s competitive successes--along with those of Sunny Hale--have helped attract women to a sport once defined by the machismo of Latin American men. Anier not only raises and trains horses at her ranch, but also teaches the game. “The most important thing for me is to hook them on polo,” she says of her students. “I don’t care if their swings are lousy or even if they miss the ball completely. Just as long as they don’t hit the horses.”