A polo player amidst a plethora of polo shirts

Author: Jeff Patterson

Middlebury has seen its share of polo shirts, has recruited die-hard water polo players and has chemistry majors that can speak at length about Polonium, but Federico "Kiko" Velge '10 might be the College's first authentic polo star.

A native of Portugal, this serious polo player is not your typical American college student. When asked what time in the afternoon would be good to conduct an interview, he responded, "Can we meet before my first class at 10:10 a.m.?"

While most of us would have slept in, Kiko got an early start, something he has been doing most of his life.

"Since six years old I was riding horses," he said. "I love horses."

Like skating in ice hockey, riding a horse is an integral, but often overlooked part of the game - but when you are a top-level player, you do not even pay any attention to it. He learned early and riding has now become second nature to him.

"In polo you really don't think about the horses," he said, "You just concentrate on the game."

"At eight, I started playing polo with just small bicycles to practice," said Velge. "When you are young that's what you do. I just practiced, practiced, practiced."

After playing at boarding school in Paris and in local tournaments, Kiko caught the attention of several owners.

"The owner calls you and rents you," Velge said as he explained the process of joining a team. "Teams are made up of a very rich owner who has some money and some horses. He buys usually two Argentinean players because they are the best ones and one Spanish one or a French one."

"The owner is usually a zero or a one handicap - if you start playing polo tomorrow, you start at minus-two, while ten is the best - he's very bad," said Velge. "You pass the ball to the owner sometimes, so he can try to score, but usually he fails."

"But you still can't leave him alone on the field. He is the guy in the front, so someone still has to be with him. Even though he doesn't play with the ball a lot, he's there for something."

Some owners even have royal blood. "There is a king on an island in Asia that is very rich and he usually buys the three best Argentinean players," said Velge, "and he usually goes to tournaments with the same three players, but only because he can afford to do this."

Other than this rare exception, owners sign players who come and go. "The only fixed part of the team is the owner, the horses and those who take care of the horses," he said.

Ever since attending a polo match as a young boy in Sotogrande, a town in the south of Spain, where his family spends their summers, Kiko has been fixed on the sport. "There is a very good tournament there every summer," he said, "I used to go there to watch."

Although he's "waiting for a date," he plans to play a lot this summer. Unfortunately, living away from the warm weather has made Kiko a little rusty. "I was a three or a four handicap, now I'm a one or a two," said Velge. "I just haven't been able to practice."

The four-named Kiko - his full name is Federico Miguel Velge Urquijo - plays the number four position, which is similar to the free-safety in football. It is primarily a defensive position, but when he intercepts the ball he too can make a run toward the goal.

In a 20-goal tournament, which is by no means for the beginner - where the total of the four players' handicaps have to add up to 20 - he is a hot commodity. "A good, good defender in a tournament is like a four handicap," said Velge. "Three is still good because you can still put other good players on your team."

In his defense, playing defense in polo is not an easy task. There is no goalkeeper and only three other defenders on a 300-yard by 160-yard playing area.

"The ball is easy to score from far away," he said. "Good guys can score from 60 yards easily."

Plus you have to steer an unfamiliar horse as thousands of fans scream and yell.

"You have to watch out for the well-being of the horses too," said Velge. "If someone has a line, no one can cross it. You can be near him, pushing him, but you can't cross it. You have to respect his line. It's very hard because the defender wants the ball too."

On top of this, "the defender has to change horses very quickly," he said. "One of the trainers will get the two horses together [the fresh one and the tired one] and the defender will jump from one to the other."

Normally it is a good idea to change horses at least twice during a chukker, one of six seven-minute periods, but "sometimes during the game, you forget to change," said Velge.

This mistake can be very costly. "The horses can die," he said. "They are always, always, running. And they are very tight, because there is a belt around them. That's the first thing you do, when you change horses - is take off the belt, so they can breathe normally."

"Argentina players have like six or seven horses," he said. They can go at full speed for the entire game with out any worries.

Although he does not want to brag about his talent, saying that, "it is not part of the mentality of the sport to show off," it should be mentioned that he has represented Spain in several tournaments. "We are not the real Spanish team," he said humbly. "They are older and they only play polo all their life. We are the third team, but the first in juniors."

"We are good, but we aren't the perfect players for the Spanish team," he said. "We are doing it for fun. Two of my friends study in England and I'm here at Middlebury. Only one of the guys on our team just plays polo. He has a chance in a couple of years to move up to the second team."