Reins in one hand, mallet in the other, body dangling off the side of the horse while smashing a ball, you can see the appeal of polo.
It’s what hooked St Paul’s Collegiate 16-year-old Dean Fullerton.
The mix of controlling a horse, hand eye co-ordination, balance and speed –the difficulty and the challenge.
Three years on from taking up the sport, Fullerton has his sights on selection for the New Zealand Secondary School’s team to play a tournament in Florida, USA, next year.
He heads to Christchurch later this month to try to impress the national coaches and is confident he is good enough to make the grade.
"To get selected you really need to be playing well during the season and get your handicap up," Fullerton said. "I think I've got a pretty good shot.
"This is one of the goals, because you then go to America and get seen over there and they're one of the bigger polo nations."
It hasn't been easy the past year. He took a blow to the hand during a match, when a ball was fired hard into the air and had to take half the season off.
Now that he’s back and the summer season is about to get underway, Fullerton is keen to make up for lost time and improve on his -1 handicap, which he said isn't as good as it should be after breaking his hand.
"That cost me time out there so I couldn't really improve on my handicap," he said.
"That’s something I'll be looking to do now that the hand is all fixed up."
The South Island boasts an impressive number of youth polo players, with more than 100 playing around the Canterbury region.
Fullerton said it’s the best place in the country to develop and should mean the trials will be difficult.
However, he has showed in the past that he can cut it with the South Island players.
He was named most valuable player at the SUPA Polo tournament in North Canterbury last year, playing as a guest player for Lincoln High School.
It helps having a top class mentor in New Zealand player Simon Keyte and being around the Mystery Creek club which boasts several international level players.
The long-term goal for Fullerton is to take his game international, hoping to play for New Zealand against power houses such as England and Argentina.
