Big news at Virginia Polo, progress on the new hay barn project has begun, starting with the demolition of the old wood barn June 8th.
A short history of the old wood barn follows.
In the early 1980’s when Virginia Polo first moved ponies to Forest Lodge, the club could only afford to build a few structures. The first items of the Virginia Polo Center master plan to be completed were the outdoor arena, fencing the pastures, and the newly built wooden barn.
The wood barn was the first stable Virginia Polo could call its own. It consisted of 5 stalls and a tack and feed room built in the affordable style of poles and lap siding. All the club’s ponies lived outside in the pastures; the barn provided a place to rehab laid up horses, tack ponies up, and a gathering place for club members. It served its purpose at the time, though members recall water used to run down the hill into the stalls, but the tack room stayed nice and dry.
In 1991 construction was completed on the big barn, pony operations and tack moved into the new barn with its plentiful standing stalls and 3 corner box stalls. With the bigger barn available, the old wood barn became a storage building for the manager, more of a tool shed in use than a horse barn.
After many years of service, we are moving on and replacing it with a more useful, larger structure in its place. The new hay barn will be larger, with a higher roofline enabling access for tractors and trucks, more space for bulk hay storage, protection for farm equipment, and a place to work on equipment in need of repair.
Thank you to all alumni who gave towards this project to make it a reality for the Polo Center. Your support, and a Polo Development Initiative grant from the USPA, have made it possible for the project to happen and to improve the storage facilities for farm equipment and hay.
Demolition took place June 8-10th and construction on the new hay barn is set to start in July.
We saved wood from the old barn, so keep an eye out for mementos!
