An Interview with the Crown Prince

HRH the Crown Prince of Pahang started riding and playing polo in 1974. he and his immediate family were still living in Kuantan then, but his father sent the two boys to Pekan each weekend for riding lessons. ‘Every Saturday and Sunday, without fail, we had to arrive there by six am. My grandfather would be waiting for us in the paddock. Sometimes we didn’t even sleep because we were so excited’.

The boys had to learn to ride competently before they were given their own ponies, or allowed to start playing polo. Their first ponies were not a great success: ‘They were really wild ponies. We were sent into the jungle to fetch them, and we couldn’t ride them at all. So we sent them to Pekan for the senior players to train them, but they didn’t get anywhere either! Then my pony tried to bite my grandfather’s hand when he was offering it a carrot, so that was it. The next morning they were gone!’
The rebel jungle ponies were replaced with more suitable mounts for TM and his brother to learn on – two grays, retired polo ponies from the late Sultan of Johor’s stable. The boys used to enjoy riding them on the beach and then, after six months, when they had learnt the basic skills in the saddle, they were allowed to play their first chukkas.
Next came the other important aspect of horsemanship – learning to care for their ponies. ‘We kept them at the back of the house in Kuantan. That saved the driving to Pekan. We had to take care of them and did the grooming and mucking out! Then we went to England for our studies. During that time my father bought us our first proper polo ponies – mine was called Apache. My first chukka was played in front of my granddad. He would always give us the last, ‘sunset’ chukka after the main games had finished – that was how we learnt’.
As he told the story of his early polo career, Tengku Mahkota was reminded of the day his grandfather died. ‘On that day, he gave me his favourite horse to play, Sylvester. He seldom gave that horse to anyone, except my father. I only learnt later, many years after his demise, that as he watched us on the field, he told one of his men: ‘My two grandsons will take polo far’.

‘We took off from there. My dad started bringing horses from Argentina. Until then we had always bought horses from Australia and New Zealand, and the quality there in those days was very different from now. My brother and I have played many tournaments overseas. When we were at school in London, I had Prince Charles on my team. We played as the Pahang team in the Windsor Cup at the Guards Club. Prince Charles played 4, I played 1, and we had Charles Beresford and Howard Hipwood with us. I also played in the high goal tournaments in the UK for many years – the Queen’s Cup and the Gold Cup. I was privileged to play with some good players – Peter Merlos, Howard Hipwood, Tommy Juarante and Memo Gracida. I have also played a bit in Argentina, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Germany (during the recent world cup), the USA, Hawaii, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia.
‘Some of the best moments were playing the Queen’s Cup. This was solid stuff – 22 goal polo – against people like Ellerston and Dubai, who had some of the world’s best players on their team, like Adolpho Cambiaso, Gonzalo Pieres and the Heguys. Not many teams have that kind of power. They are very intelligent players; it’s not easy playing against them. They have much more experience than me, because they have played so much more high goal polo than I have. That experience is something you cannot compare with what we have.
‘When I play with the top professionals, they treat me like any other player. I like them to treat me like that, not as a patron. I enjoy myself more by committing myself to the team, not just banking on the professionals to do everything.
‘Two things keep me interested in polo these days. First, through polo I can keep myself really fit. Second, I want to see the young players, especially in Pahang, develop and able to play well. Now that we have lost our best player, Shariman, I am putting a lot of effort to see one or two more players come up to take over Shariman’s place. And of course I am still waiting for my sons to pick up the sport – Amir, who is 20 , Hassanal, who is 11, and the two youngest, Muhammad and Ahmad, who are only 9 and 5 years old’