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60 free Polo trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This polo trivia quiz covers the sport of kings from every angle: the four-player teams and seven-minute chukkas, the ten-acre field, the line of the ball, ride-offs and hooks, the handicap scale from minus 2 to 10, and the ponies, mallets and balls that make the game. It also traces the history — Persian chovgan and Sasanian princes, Byzantine emperors, Tang dynasty women, the Mamluk sultan who died in the saddle, Manipur's sagol kangjei and the tea planters who carried it to Britain, the first American match of 1876, Argentina's Olympic golds and Triple Crown, Adolfo Cambiaso's cloned horses, the Westchester Cup and Guards Polo Club, plus elephant, cycle and Segway polo. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation. Enjoy this one? Try our Horse Racing and Olympics quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many players are on each team in outdoor field polo?
Four
Arena polo, played on a smaller enclosed dirt surface, uses three a side.
Q 02What is the name for a period of play in polo?
A chukka
Each lasts seven minutes plus up to 30 seconds of overtime, with a four-minute break between and a ten-minute half-time.
Q 03How long is each period of play?
Seven minutes
Play continues for up to 30 seconds after the bell, or until the next stoppage, whichever comes first.
Q 04What are the dimensions of a full-size outdoor polo field?
300 by 160 yards
At roughly ten acres it is the largest playing field of any modern sport, about nine American football fields.
Q 05How far apart are the goal posts on a polo field?
Eight yards
A goal counts no matter how high the ball passes between them.
Q 06Which ancient equestrian game, played in Persia, is the ancestor of polo?
Chovgan
It was a court pastime of the Sasanian Empire; Iran's chogan was added to UNESCO's heritage list in 2017.
Q 07From which language does the English word 'polo' come?
Balti
It means ball, and is cognate with the Tibetan pulu; the anglicised term was picked up in Manipur.
Q 08Which Sasanian emperor learned to play polo at the age of seven in 316 CE?
Shapur II
The game was part of the royal education for the Sasanian ruling class, and women played it too.
Q 09Which Byzantine emperor built the tzykanisterion polo stadium in Constantinople?
Theodosius II
Emperor Alexander later died of exhaustion while playing, and John I of Trebizond died from a polo injury.
Q 10Which famous Isfahan plaza was built as a polo field by Abbas I in the 17th century?
Naqsh-i Jahan Square
The stone goal posts still stand at either end of the vast square.
Q 11Which playing-card suit did Europeans create from the Mamluk polo-stick suit?
Clubs
Polo was so little known in Europe that the sticks were reinterpreted as batons or clubs.
Q 12Which Delhi sultan died in 1210 when he fell from his horse during a polo game?
Qutubuddin Aibak
He was impaled on the pommel of his own saddle; his dynasty is known as the Mamluk or Slave dynasty.
Q 13Women played polo in the capital of which Chinese dynasty, as tomb figures show?
Tang
They had to wear male dress to do so, and one polo-obsessed noblewoman was buried with her donkeys in 878.
Q 21Between which years was polo an Olympic sport?
1900 to 1936
It appeared at five Games in all; the IOC re-recognised the sport's governing body in 1998.
Q 22Which newspaper publisher staged America's 'first' polo match in New York in 1876?
James Gordon Bennett Jr.
Texans in Denison had already formed a club and challenged him, and legend puts even earlier games at Boerne, Texas.
Q 23Which American turned polo into a high-speed long-passing game around 1909?
Harry Payne Whitney
His teams used the fast break, sending long balls to riders galloping clear of the pack.
Q 14In which Indian state did British tea planters learn the modern game from local players?
Manipur
The local form, sagol kangjei, is played seven a side on ponies under 13 hands, with no goal posts.
Q 15Where is the world's oldest polo ground?
Imphal, Manipur
Its history is recorded in the royal chronicle from 33 CE; Lord Curzon measured it at 225 by 110 yards in 1901.
Q 16Which is the oldest institution of the sport still in existence, founded in 1862?
Calcutta Polo Club
Founded by British officers Joseph Sherer and Robert Stewart, it hosts the Ezra Cup, the oldest polo tournament.
Q 17Which British cavalry regiment is credited with introducing polo to England?
10th Hussars
Officers who had learned the game in India brought it home in the 1860s.
Q 18Which body wrote the first formal British rules in 1874 and still governs the UK game?
Hurlingham Polo Association
Most smaller national associations follow either its rules or those of the United States Polo Association.
Q 19Who organised the first formal polo game on the pampas, in 1875?
David Shennan
Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English immigrants on the pampas took the game up, and the gauchos soon excelled at it.
Q 20At which Games did the Argentine polo team win their nation's first Olympic gold?
Paris 1924
They defended the title in Berlin in 1936, the last time polo was contested at the Olympics.
Q 24What is the range of the polo handicap scale?
Minus 2 to 10
Fewer than two dozen players in the world hold a 10-goal rating, and most of them are Argentine.
Q 25Who created the polo handicap system at the founding of the USPA in 1890?
Henry Lloyd Herbert
It rates a player's overall worth to the team, not the number of goals they might score.
Q 26Which country has produced the most 10-goal handicap players?
Argentina
Five Argentine teams have fielded four 10-goalers at once for a 40-goal line-up, starting with Coronel Suárez in 1975.
Q 27Which three tournaments make up the polo Triple Crown played around Buenos Aires?
Hurlingham, Tortugas and Palermo Opens
The season runs from October to December, ending at the Campo Argentino de Polo in Palermo.
Q 28Since which year has the Argentine Open been played?
1893
Held at Palermo in Buenos Aires, it was called the River Plate Polo Championship until 1923.
Q 29Which Argentine 10-goaler co-founded La Dolfina and pioneered polo horse cloning?
Adolfo Cambiaso
His first clone was produced in 2010; his celebrated mare Cuartetera has been cloned many times.
Q 30What was the record score in La Dolfina's 2005 Argentine Open final win over Ellerstina?
20-19
It remains the highest-scoring final in the tournament's history.