Gulf Stream School had a brief return to its roots on Feb. 19 as young polo players presented an exhibition game on the school’s lacrosse field. The school was built in 1938 on part of the original Gulfstream Polo Club.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Mary Thurwachter
When students at the Gulf Stream School study the school’s history, they can’t help but look at polo. After all, Gulf Stream School — the only school on the barrier island between the Palm Beach and the Hillsboro Inlet — was built on polo fields in 1938. The school’s first classroom was in a polo barn.
So this year on Feb. 19, as part of the school’s 75th anniversary celebration, polo ponies and players appeared on the campus to show students the basics of the game.
Four players and one referee, all aboard polo ponies, galloped across the school’s lacrosse field putting on a show the students won’t soon forget. Neither will Head of School Joseph Zaluski, who — at the coaxing of a parent — gingerly mounted a polo pony after the demonstration.
“This was certainly not planned,” Zaluski said afterward. “Honestly, I was concerned that if that pony decided to go for a romp, I would be in serious trouble.”
Fortunately for Zaluski, the pony stood regally still as everyone posed for pictures in front of the school.
Before the demonstration, students gathered in the chapel to hear alumnus Russell Corey, who played polo all over the world and whose father, Alan, is in the Polo Hall of Fame. Corey, of Delray Beach, serves on the board of the Polo Museum in Wellington.
A former teammate of Corey’s and a Gulf Stream School alum, Gene Fortugno, was also in attendance. “His polo résumé and family history are similar to Corey’s,” said Casey Wilson, the school’s director of development.
Corey talked about the history and rules of the game, the mallet and the polo ball, and polo ponies, which he said were really horses that ran up to 35 mph.
“In 1923, Gulf Stream was the birthplace of polo in Florida,” Corey said. “It was a great training ground for young players.”
The Gulfstream Polo Club, first called Phipps Fields (for Mike Phipps, who owned and ran the place), set the scene for what became known as the winter polo capital of the world. The roster of players included Winston and Raymond Guest and William Post II, Stewart and Phillip Iglehart and Adolph Busch Orthwein.
Corey said that no polo games were played during World War II, but the horses were called to duty as the Coast Guard used them to patrol the beach, on the lookout for German submarines.
Polo was last played in Gulf Stream in 1965 when the Phipps family sold the land for development. Gulfstream Polo moved 16 miles west on Lake Worth Road.
“Many of the teachers have said they and the students thought the presentation and demonstration were great,” Wilson said. Some of them even brought polo balls back to the classroom as souvenirs.
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