Are plans to widen access to polo a winner?

I missed it, and that thwack came when my mallet made contact with the legs of poor Denzel, the very patient pony with whom I'm learning to play the "sport of kings".

It's easy to see why the sport has earned such a lofty nickname. Prince Charles was a regular competitor until 2005 when injuries forced him to retire from the game, but both of his sons remain keen players.

It can be a very expensive pastime, attracting princes and playboys alike, and with the highly-trained ponies costing anything from tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds, the general perception of polo is that it's not for the proles.

Only it's a perception that's not entirely accurate, and one which many in the polo world are trying to change. There are more than 70 polo clubs across the UK, many of which offer not-too-eye-watering membership rates and at the very least spectators can attend most local games for free.

This Thursday, for the first time, the Gaucho International Polo will be held at London's O2 Arena, and will see Scotland play South Africa and England take on Argentina.

Teams will be playing arena polo, a fast-paced, spectator-friendly version of the game which sees fewer players (three on each team instead of the usual four) and a smaller field so that spectators can witness the speediest ball game in the world up close.

I'm sampling the sport at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club, where I'm assured at the start of the session that I'll be wielding my mallet with gusto by the end of it.

As tricky as polo looks, it is indeed a sport you can pick up - and enjoy - within a day. I start out astride a wooden horse learning some of the more basic mallet manoeuvres.

The mallet is 57in long and makes contact with the ball on its longest side. It moves in one plane - perpendicular to the ground - and, I'm assured, won't bother the pony if it happens to make contact with a hoof now and again.

Before long, I'm sitting atop poor Denzel, my stirrups slightly shorter than they might usually be, and clasping two sets of reins instead of the usual one. The animal responds to even the gentlest of movements of the reins or squeezes with the legs, but even on the most responsive of ponies, making contact with the ball is something of a challenge.

Still, as promised, within a couple of hours I feel confident enough to canter towards the ball, mallet poised, and strike it into the goal without doing Denzel an injury.

"It's a really addictive game," says Jamie Le Hardy, who has played for both England and Scotland thanks to his mixed parentage, and will be donning a Scotland shirt for Thursday's game. "When I told my careers advisor that I harboured ambitions of becoming a professional polo player, I was met with a laugh.

But I knew it was for me from a young age. The speed of the game and the smells of the horses, the leather, the freshly-cut field; it's intoxicating. And while it's never quite going to be the people's game, the sport is becoming more accessible than ever. A lot of young people play through their universities, and clubs are very welcoming to new members, regardless of experience."

One of the oldest sports in the world, polo was first played in Persia by men and women in around 600 BC, and was used as a training game for cavalry, who played it as many as 100 a side. It was introduced to Britain in 1869 by the 10th Hussars in Aldershot, and has been a popular pastime among the aristocracy for the past 150 years.

Today, if you want to compete seriously, you need multiple horses, which goes some way towards explaining why the sport can be so expensive. A game is typically divided into six "chukkas" each lasting seven minutes, and the top competitors use a different horse for each chukka.

However, while the sport was once very much focused on those playing at the highest level, in the past ten to 15 years, there has been a move towards playing for recreation. Thom Bell, who runs the Dundee and Perth Polo Club, sees people of all ages and incomes and gives one-on-one lessons for 50 an hour. More experienced players can take part in chukkas using his horses from 45 a game.

"The elitism has gone from the sport," he says. "There are still people out there who spend millions of pounds a year on the game, but the days where you needed to own three ponies and have staff on hand if you wanted to play are gone.

I have one woman in her fifties who comes to me regularly and calls polo her 'mid-life crisis' while another woman in her mid-twenties got into the sport in university and still plays. And riding experience isn't necessary.

One man thought that a black and white horse was a cow when he started, and within six lessons he was cantering around quite confidently. It's the ultimate sport. The speed, the camaraderie, the tactics, the athleticism and the social side of it all add up to something that's more addictive than raw heroin."

Scotland play South Africa at The Gaucho International Polo at the O2 in London on Thursday at 6:15pm. Tickets start from 25. Visit www.theo2polo.com for more details.

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 19 February, 2011