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After the bean crop on the field was harvested in the fall of 1923, Frank
Flournoy surveyed the land and the ground was prepared for the planting of
turf. Dozens of local boys were hired to set out stolons of Bermuda grass on
the leveled and sanded field.
In January 1926, the
Morning Press
reported, “Jupiter Pluvius stepped in
and put a stop to a gala-opening planned for the Santa Barbara polo season
wet weather necessitating a postponement. Thursday night’s heavy rain made
the new Fleischmann field unfit to play upon, for the new turf would hardly
stand the strain of an eight chukker battle.”
In February, the visiting Midwick team from Alhambra roundly trounced
the Santa Barbara horsemen 10 to 1, thereby inaugurating, if somewhat
ignominiously, the new Fleischmann field and the local polo season.
Next door to Major Fleischmann’s field, two additional polo fields were
being constructed. After spending $200,000, the owner moved to Florida and
Fleischmann purchased the incomplete fields in 1929. By 1930, Santa Barbara
could boast that it had Fleischmann, Bartlett, Cox, and Hope Ranch polo
fields in addition to various private practice fields. The idea that Santa Barbara
was the polo capital of the world was gaining credence.
Then the world was thrown into a decade-long Depression. Hard
financial times saw the stables at the Cox Field abandoned in 1931 and
dismantled in the 1950s. Te Bartlett Field suffered a similar fate. In
1932, its clubhouse became a residence.
The Santa Barbara Polo Club, however, has endured the vicissitudes
of fortune and continues to this day at Fleischmann’s fields at Serena.
Sources: Contemporary news articles from
Morning Press
and
Daily
News
: 1894, 1899, 1901, 1904, 1910, 1916, 1926; articles by Stella
Haverland Rouse; notes by Dr. Elmer J. Boeseke circa 1920s; Santa
Barbara Polo Club program, 1921; City directories and U.S. Census;
www.sportpolo.com/History; www.polomuseum.com; David Myrick’s
Montecito and Santa Barbara
; Tompkins, N-P 6-20-71; maps)
(right) Smartly dressed tailgaters grace Fleischmann’s Polo grounds (Courtesy Santa
Barbara Historical Museum)
(below) Starting in 1926, Major Max Fleischmann(on the white horse) could play on
his own field at Serena (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)
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