Duke of Essex Polo - Hylands Park

This year, the Duke of Essex's polo competition was held at Hylands Park in Chelmsford. Being so close to home, we thought that we should go and see it.  However, I am not sure we will be going again if it returns.

The polo itself was quite enjoyable - although there was  not a lot of it.  We arrived around 12 noon and by the time we left at almost 6 o'clock, whilst we had seen every minute of polo played, we had probably seen no more than an hour of play in all.  There were two games, each divided into two halves, with each half divided into two 7 minute chukkas.  That makes 28 minutes of play per game - so less than an hour in total.  To make things worse, there was a very big half time break in each game, and an even longer break between the games.  Unfortunately, despite the advertising saying that there was a lot of other things to do, the reality was that there was very little other entertainment going on, and most of that which did exist was expensive.  The one exception was the Formula 1 simulator, which was free and fun.  Although there were long queues, it did not stop Dominic waiting in line for a second go.