SBPS - Santa Barbara Polo School
2008 - 2009 Collegiate & Scholastic Arena Polo Program
We welcome you to this year's Santa Barbara Polo School's Collegiate & Scholastic Arena Polo Program, a program that in the last six years has taken 18 qualifying teams to the Regional Intercollegiate and/or Interscholastic Polo Competitions and 4 qualifying teams to the National Intercollegiate Polo Competitions. We look forward to another great year!
The Polo School
The Santa Barbara Polo School (SBPS), with the help of the SBYPA and the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club, is proudly operating on its own with John Westley as the director and instructor. During the spring/summer months the SBPS focuses on private lessons, arena games and clinics. During the fall/winter months the SBPS focuses on the Collegiate & Scholastic Arena Polo Program.
Training & Competition
In the Collegiate & Scholastic Arena Polo Program, we have up to 40 horses for the students to ride. High School and College/Graduate students are divided up and taught according to their skill levels. Horsemanship and polo are taught side by side. As the playing abilities of the various students are determined, teams for each participating school are formed as we head into the intercollegiate and interscholastic games put on by the SBPS, the United States Polo Association and the Polo Training Foundation*. Most all the games are in the arena at the Santa Barbara Polo School, but some are at other locations.
Collegiate and Scholastic Polo Teams
The schools involved in this program at the SBPS include Westmont College, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara High School, Laguna Blanca, San Marcos High School and The Thacher School. Each collegiate team plays under their school name as a "club sport," but the Santa Barbara Scholastic Team is usually a composition of students from various high schools, depending on how many high school students participate in the program.
Affordability & Scholarships
To enable the students to afford to participate in this Collegiate & Scholastic Arena Polo Program, the Santa Barbara Youth Polo Association (501c3) continues to work hard. Its primary purpose is to award scholarship money to students who qualify for the arena polo program that the SBPS offers. The application process is quick and easy providing that you meet the basic criteria to merit a scholarship. 20 students (subject to program capacity) who qualify will be awarded scholarship funds, on a first come first serve basis. These scholarship funds will be paid out to the SBPS to cover a large percentage of each scholarship recipient's program fee.
It is the goal of the SBYPA to keep the students' individual contributions to roughly 30% of the arena polo program price. The other 70% of the costs will be covered by SBYPA scholarship funds.
Come join us in another exciting season. We look forward to your participation!
* For more resources concerning student polo, please go www.us-polo.org/students/welcome.htm.)