One Thing Worse Than Death
Hello, horse fans and hello, mystery fans, and hello, horse mystery fans!
Polo experienced a surge in popularity in North America through the ’50s right up into the ’70s. Throughout this time, an amazing player dominated the sport, but he came, played hard, and disappeared before anyone could speak to him.
This mystery lasted twenty years until the early ’70s when a rule change revealed him to be…
Well, you’ll just have to listen to the episode to find out!
We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. Please comment about the show, and please like and subscribe on all your favourite podcast aggregators!
Music by Chris “Maestro Fresh Ness” Roberts
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Despite the ominous title, I found this episode surprisingly free of murders, conspiracies and fatal diseases. It sounds like Sue Sally Hale was a real trailblazer. I was impressed that her male teammates kept her secret all those years. It reminded me of the women who fought on both sides of the American Civll War disguised as men, some in the cavalry. Some had enlisted along with their husbands and brothers so it’s remarkable how many served without anyone slipping up and giving them away.
I thought of a film that has a polo montage in it — the 1968 version of The Thomas Crown Affair. Faye Dunaway’s insurance investigator character shows up sitting on the back of a red Ferrari convertible to film Steve McQueen as he flaunts his wealth, machismo and competitive nature while playing a vigorous chukker. It’s worth checking out the scene on YouTube for its innovative use of multiple split-screens — some having as many 60 images in the same frame. In the 1999 Pierce Brosnan remake, the screenwriter changed the scene to a wild catamaran race as by then polo was deemed too cliché.