News

Flying H Polo Fields Are Considered The Best Around

By ERIC SCHMOLDT
Casper Star-Tribune staff writer
Saturday, August 16, 2008 11:24 PM MDT

SHERIDAN -- All Lance Baker really wanted was a raise.

He basically added a second job.

And it's one that includes 90-hour work weeks in the summer, clinics and classes to learn his craft and a grand vision that probably once seemed impossible.

Baker helped Skey Johnston and company turn an alfalfa field into perhaps the best polo field in the United States, and now he's in charge of keeping it that way.

"Some of the really good pros that are here were saying these are the best fields they've ever played on in the world," Baker said on Saturday. "That's a pretty good compliment."

Not bad for a facility in Big Horn, a town with a population just over 200.

Just three years after breaking ground at the Flying H Polo Club, Baker's work has become world-renowned.

"Mr. Johnston and his family had the vision to put this here and it's been wonderful," said Julio Arellano, whose 8 handicap makes him one of the best players in the world. "The facility is world class. Every year (Johnston) surprises us by putting something better and newer in.

"You really couldn't ask for a better place. He could host any kind of polo, any class and everybody would be satisfied."

Today the club will host what is most likely the highest rated game in the country of the summer season when Arellano and seven other players take part in the second annual Goose Creek Benefit Cup.

Arellano compared it to the National Football League's Pro Bowl.

And while Big Horn seems like light years away from Honolulu, the lush, green fields of Flying H might be the closest thing to Hawaii in the Cowboy State.

"Before this I was going to Santa Barbara, Calif., which is a great location," Arellano said. "But I've been coming here for three years and it's going to be hard to get me to leave."

For a handful of weeks every summer, there's no reason for anyone to leave the property that provides a new postcard with every turn of the head.

Nestled into the base of the Big Horn mountains, the Flying H includes three game fields, a practice field, two exercise tracks and four barns that can accommodate up to 100 horses.

And it takes Baker and a crew of seven full-time summer staffers to maintain it.

"It's probably comparable to maintaining a golf course," Baker said. "We probably put on a half inch of sand every year and then it's just a lot of mowing, a lot of maintenance on equipment and stuff and then setting up for games during the six weeks that they play."

Prior to 2005, Baker helped with construction and maintenance on the working ranch -- which includes hay and grain production and cattle operations.

Since then, he's attended numerous greenskeeping clinics in the region to learn more about maintaining the polo fields.

"I really didn't have that much experience, but I learned as it went on," Baker said. "I'm sure the guys who started coming here the very first year have been amazed at what's gone on every year.

"You take a look at the pictures of when we first started this, before there was any grass and it's just amazing."

Baker assumes expansion will continue in coming years, but he's already got something special.

And he got his raise, too.