Polo & Riding

The East End's only club recognised by the US Polo Association, with five fields, a training barn and its own polo school. Matches run most weekend afternoons through the summer; a chukker is a seven-minute period, and there are four to six of them. At half-time everyone walks onto the field to stamp the torn-up turf back down — the divot stomp, and the part most people remember. The big fixtures are the Hamptons Festival of Polo (22 August) and the Labor Day Cup; an October visit is a gamble, because the last chukkers are 27 September even though the grounds stay open to 15 October.

One of the largest outdoor hunter/jumper shows in the US: FEI 5* and 2* show jumping, world-class hunters, a boutique garden and a kids' tent. Grand Prix Sunday runs the $70,000 2* Grand Prix at 10:30am and the $400,000 Longines Hampton Classic Grand Prix at 2:00pm.

The club runs chukkers at least three times a week for beginner, intermediate and advanced players, with professional coaching included at all levels to keep practice safe. Stick and ball is offered six days a week, with premium stick and ball on the main polo fields — the club has five polo fields and two stick-and-ball fields. Every rider must wear sanctioned protective equipment, and EMTs are on hand for all practice and tournament play. Previously listed at Two Trees Farm under the defunct Bridgehampton Polo Club.

Required to enter USPA-sanctioned tournament play. The East End's only USPA member club is The Hamptons Polo Club in Water Mill — an Active Club in the Northeastern circuit since February 15, 2023, rated 0-to-4 goal, with its own polo school. New players start with USPA's Learn to Play program.

The on-ramp for adults who want to actually ride chukkers. Gray Horse Farm Hamptons — founded 2001, led by Erin Stewart and Lauren Gridley — is the riding operation now working out of the Two Trees farm on Hayground Road, 115 acres with three outdoor rings, two indoor rings, a Grand Prix field and a polo field. Its owner-trainer offers beginner polo lessons; horses and ponies are available for lesson, lease or sale. (Two Trees Stables itself, the boarding business, is marked temporarily closed and its own domain no longer resolves — the polo lessons here are Gray Horse Farm's.)

The oldest working cattle ranch in the United States, run by Patrick and Cate Keogh. Guided rides through thousands of preserved acres at Theodore Roosevelt County Park and down to the water.

Hunter/jumper and dressage on Town Lane, with five arenas, a lesson program, half and full leases, and morning summer camps in five-day weekly sessions from age four. The stable where Hamptons kids learn to ride.

Almost forty acres a mile south of Bridgehampton village, owned and operated exclusively by the Topping family since 1970: boarding, training and a riding school providing all levels of instruction up to AA horse showing. Two outdoor riding rings, a grass hunt course and an indoor riding ring with a heated viewing room. Pony rides on Friday and Saturday afternoons in July and August need no reservation.

Outdoor matches run four to six chukkers of seven-and-a-half minutes each on a 300-by-160-yard field — roughly nine football fields. Teams change ends after every goal (in arena polo, only after each chukker). Two separate rules keep it safe: the Line of the Ball, the imaginary line the ball travels, and the Right of Way, which — unlike the LOB — does not depend on who last hit the ball. Players are handicapped from -1 (C) to 10, and everyone carries the mallet in the right hand. At halftime spectators are invited onto the grass to stomp divots.