Polo was a cowboy sport in the Canadian West long before the advent of the organized rodeo with its bucking horses and chuck-wagon races. Played there within twenty years of its introduction to Britain, it flourishes today.

From the first match in southern Alberta in the 1880s, the game's popularity spread like wildfire through the foothills ranchlands. In a country whose life revolved around horsemen and the horse, polo became its most popular sport and a focus of community pride and social life. At its peak, some twenty clubs were grouped around Pincher Creek, Calgary and Winnipeg, in the British Columbia Interior and on the West Coast. With the turn of the century, their teams, looking for outside competition, regularly won major tournaments in Eastern Canada and in the American west. Their stars were in demand as professionals.

With the advent of cars, tractors and planes, the face of ranching changed and with it, polo’s universal appeal. Wars and economic depression brought most clubs to their knees while others struggled to survive. Today the strong Calgary Polo Club is a major influence in the U.S. Polo Association and, elsewhere in the West, the game is growing.

Based on extensive research into original sources, Tony Rees vividly explores the history of polo on the field and the role of its players and patrons in the development of Western Canada's unique society. Polo, The Galloping Game, for the first time defines the place of western Canadian polo in the international world of sport.

Tony Rees is a Calgary writer and historian. His first book, Hope’s Last Home: Travels in Milk River Country, was short-listed for the 1996 Writers Guild of Alberta's award for nonfiction.