Moscow Polo Club Strikes International Alliance With A Local Polo Facility

By Darlene Ricker

An international mecca for polo, Wellington has long drawn players from across the world, especially, of course, from polo hotspot Argentina. This season its reach is expanding to embrace another part of the planet less well-known when it comes to polo: Russia.

Through the efforts of Misha Rodzianko and Joey Casey, the Moscow Polo Club has teamed up as a sister club with Palm City Polo in western Boynton Beach. For Rodzianko, who jets in regularly to train with Casey, that now means spending at least four months a year in the Wellington area.

The highest-rated polo player in Russia, Rodzianko is director of the Moscow Polo Club, the oldest and largest polo club in the country. His father, Alexis Rodzianko, the club’s president, purchased it in 2005. Misha Rodzianko adopted Palm City Polo as his U.S. home shortly after Casey opened the club in late 2014. While he found the facilities superb — which is saying a lot considering the number of top-notch polo clubs throughout the Wellington area — the real draw for Rodzianko was Casey, a widely respected former pro player.

The international handshake between the two clubs was a logical development, as they have numerous parallels. Both are a similar size in terms of barns, fields, arenas and other facets.

“Some of the horses in my barn in Moscow came from Joey in Florida,” said Rodzianko, whose father has brought his team to play in Florida for years.

This summer, Casey has been invited to bring a U.S. team to play in one or two of the Moscow club’s tournaments.

“For me, a sister club is a club with the same positivity about it,” Rodzianko said. “Our clubs have a very similar feel to them with a deep respect for the horses and the sport, and a very good and positive vibe between the players. For this reason, I recommend my players to play at Palm City, and I have received players in Moscow on Joey’s recommendation.”

A “huge factor” in Rodzianko’s ability to recruit new players for Moscow has been tutelage under Casey. “I learned more during two years with Joey than in 10 years playing polo before that. The most important thing I learned from Joey was his obsession with minimizing the risks and dangers of the sport, especially with new players,” he said.

Rodzianko’s experience with Casey came in stark contrast to his initiation into the sport as a boy in Russia. “My first time, I was given a polo mallet and a horse, and they said, ‘Go hit the ball.’ I fell off seven times the first day, but like any competitive 14-year-old, that was something I liked about the sport. I loved it. Just loved it! There was nothing like it!”

Born in the United States, Rodizanko spent a good part of his childhood in this country. But the first time he played polo here was seven years into his polo career, far from Florida. At a snow polo tournament in Aspen in 2010, he met some American players who recommended Florida to him.

“I saw the opportunity to consolidate my studies while continuing my favorite hobby,” said Rodzianko, who graduated from Lynn University in Boca Raton with a double major in business administration and international business.

He believes that his polo training at Palm City were crucial in gaining the skills he would later need to transform what was basically a family polo club into the largest one in Russia.

“Joey made quite an impression on me,” Rodzianko recalled. “He saw potential in me and helped me structure my game and correct my swing. Most importantly, he took me to the round pen, where I realized that I was only a confident rider and very far from a good one. Looking back, I can say with absolute certainty that I would not be the player I am today had I ended up at any other club. After spending one season with Joey, my handicap went up. Even the Argentine coaches at our club in Moscow were amazed that in just over four months I had returned a different player.”

Rodzianko’s fervent goal is grow the Moscow Polo Club to a point where the sport becomes large enough to support an industry around it in Russia. Expanding the global polo market also benefits places in the world where polo is already well-established, such as Wellington, he noted.

How might the alliance between the Moscow and Palm City clubs affect Wellington?

“It is difficult to say,” Rodzianko said, “but I would not take high-goal teams with Russian patrons off the table.”