Sport: Horses and Men

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men who represented England in the first of the 1924 International Polo matches at Meadow Brook, L. L, became as Humpty Dumpty before a smashing U. S. attack, nor could they pull themselves together again. With Lord Renfrew grinning, with Secretary of War Weeks beaming, with Astors and Goulds and Whitneys and Vanderbilts tilting their field glasses, with Cohens and Murphys and Joneses and Smiths asking questions and gaping —all to the number of 35,000, jammed about International Field—Dev-ereux Milburn and his three co-centaurs swept the Britons harshly aside, moved as a machine, scored almost at will, 16 to 5.

The day’s heroes:

Malcolm Stevenson, who, playing No. 3 for the U. S. in his first Inter-national match, after waiting 11 years as a substitute, catapulted over his stumbling pony’s neck, lay unconscious, was lugged off the field in a blanket with brain concussion. Devereux Milburn, captain and Back for the U. S., who was “the dashing, daring, irresistible incarnation of arrogance on horseback.”

Luis Lacey, captain and Back for England, who sought desperately to turn the tide singlehanded.

The U. S. ponies, which were swifter, keener, cleverer than the British horseflesh present.

Edward of Wales, who behaved himself and was behaved toward as at any time, in any place, in any U. S. crowd.

The New York Times, which devoted 19 of its myriad Sunday columns (over 2 pages) to exhaustive accounts of the shots made, the personages present, the remarks overheard, the theories and opinions advanced, the minutest details about players, ponies, chukkers, mallets, balls, turf, weather, financial data.