CENTERTON -- A young Bob Koehler peered through the wood slat fence that stood taller than he was.
Next door to his parents' dairy farm in Clarence, N.Y., a family was moving in. They brought horses with them -- big, graceful, fascinating creatures.
"I saw horses go by and always loved them," Koehler says. "But I never had the opportunity to do anything with them. When the neighbors moved in, they built a barn and I wandered over there."
The youngest of nine children, he began to sneak off to the neighbors' house regularly. He learned that if he cleaned the barn and did upkeep on the farm, they rewarded him with riding time. What's more, it gave him the chance to learn more about the mysterious animals.
Sitting atop that pony, Koehler hadn't the slightest inkling that he would one day be a world-class professional polo player and the highest rated in Colorado 16 years in a row, or that he would own polo clubs and dozens of horses. He only hoped he'd figure out how to keep from being rammed into the barn.
BY THE BOOTSTRAPS
Friends knew that inviting him over meant a horse would come too. Several times Todd Hall, a longtime friend of Koehler's, would ask him to go into town and the two would go side by side -- Hall on a motorcycle and Koehler on horseback.
The same rule held when searching for Koehler.
"We'd be sitting there and someone would say, 'Where's Bob?' and he'd be at the fences with the horses," Hall says. "He would do anything to ride a horse -- clean the barn ... he was hands on more than anything and so in love with horses. He couldn't afford one and his parents certainly couldn't."
In the world of professional polo, it's hard not to imagine the ranks of elite society. Riding polo costs money -- for lessons, the helmet, the mallet, and if you get serious about it -- the horse, the stable, the upkeep. When Koehler discovered polo, he had none of those things and no means to get them. He and his siblings sometimes swapped clothes to have something different to wear to school the next day.
What they lacked in material wealth, Koehler said, his mother made up for with love and attention.
At age 9, he began working on the neighbors' farm, where he grew accustomed to the hard work of caring for horses. Koehler didn't mind it, though. In fact, his few spare moments away from the farm were spent with reading material about horses, like Western Horseman magazine.
Without riding lessons and few pointers on how to train horses, Koehler, 54, is among the few that are truly self-taught. He maintains that working on the farm and immersing himself in everything horse-related made up for that lack of formal training.
"He was good at everything with horses," Hall says. "When he was young, he could watch a polo match and could tell if there was something wrong with a horse by looking at it while someone was riding it. It came to him naturally."
Koehler found a group of local boys who played polo at night, and became an avid spectator long before he was old enough to play. He studied the structure of the game, the traits of good horses and how things fit together.
In the game of polo, players bring their own horses. Knowing that no one was going to hand him one, Koehler saved his farm earnings. By the time he was ready to buy his own, Koehler knew what to look for.
BRINGING POLO TO THE OZARKS
Koehler's humble upbringing is one reason many regard him as an excellent instructor and polo club owner. He brought those talents to Northwest Arkansas shortly after he and wife, Susan, moved from Colorado to Bentonville when she went to work for Wal-Mart in 2006.
Susan Stallworth had met Bob when she began to take polo lessons from him and said that openness and generosity were what drew her to him.
"He has a kindness," she says. "Shortly after we met, he gave me polo boots. It was so sweet, the most touching gift. I'd had horse interests since I was young, but my family didn't hand stuff to me. They thought I'd grow out of it."
His ability to pinpoint what she really loved caught her eye, and their similar upbringings made it easy to connect to each other. They were engaged five months later.
In arriving at their new home, Koehler and his wife bought property and went to work forming a club of their own in a region that is relatively bare in terms of polo opportunity.
The result was NWA Polo Club, which opened this summer and already has eight official members, just enough to hold scrimmages and polo matches, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Members of his clubs past and present say Koehler often employs people and lends horses and equipment to anyone who has a genuine interest.
"He hired my 14-year-old son for a summer to work at [his] polo club," says Ron Allen, a polo announcer for ESPN International. "My son learned about determination and hard work from Bob. Today [as a] 25-year-old, he's now a professional polo player in Houston."
Mark Killenbeck, a University of Arkansas law professor and club member, experienced that generous spirit when his daughter began taking polo lessons, and again when he took up lessons.
"He makes it possible for people who do not have means to learn about the sport, to get a feeling for it by using his equipment and horses," he says. "It takes a pretty trusting human being to let someone who's a klutz up on a sophisticated polo pony at anything but a lazy walk."
SELF-STARTER
At the ripe old age of 11, Koehler bought Suzy, a Pinto pony. Throughout the coming junior high and high school years, he picked up polo.
For Koehler, having the passion for riding and putting in the long hours wasn't the tough part. Buying horses was. He knew that to be taken seriously in the sport, he'd need a minimum of two -- but ideally six -- horses.
"Getting good horses, better horses without much money plus the cost of polo, and to learn to train horses myself," Koehler says, "getting good horses, that was the hardest thing."
Knowing what to look for made a difference.
"A horse can be bought for $10,000 or $60,000, doesn't matter," Koehler says. "If it's taken to a trainer and they train it, take it out, breeze it on the track," you can find a good one. So he looked for "a brain, how they respond, calm, no white in the eye, a short back, low tail, short cannon bones for all the hard running and not a lot of muscle mass."
At 15, Koehler began playing on a polo team and quickly gained a reputation as the strongest player. He borrowed horses from anyone who could spare them and asked his buddies to ready them for the change-out at each chukker, or period of a polo game.
Hall was one of those supportive friends back in Clarence. He said he invested time in Koehler because he, like everyone else around him, could tell that Koehler had talent. The free drinks afterward didn't hurt, either.
"He did whatever it took to get people to help him out," Hall says. "He'd take care of everybody, he'd pay us. He was really grass-roots. Nothing was ever handed to this guy. He came from nothing. He worked hard for everything."
Opportunities in high school took Koehler to 4-H Polo and the New York State Fair in Syracuse. Between the farm work by day and polo at night, he had few hours of sleep. By age 17, he'd earned his six horses -- enough to play professionally.
After high school graduation, Koehler worked on his brother's farm and picked up landscaping work on occasion. He got into rodeo events for a few years as a means to stay involved with horses. As a team roper, he was chosen to compete alongside a national champion because of his expertise with horses. It wasn't ideal, but it did keep him in the right social circle -- meeting people with horses, like Ron Sullivan.
In exchange for Koehler's work feeding, training and preparing the horses, Sullivan helped him acquire more horses, and a van to haul them to polo games.
Where some might be discouraged by the slow progress, Koehler became more encouraged. He had more than he'd ever had in his life, and playing polo was reward enough.
In 1983, Koehler took a trip to visit his brother who lived in Denver, prime polo country.
A GAME FOR ALL SEASONS
While there, Koehler stopped at the Denver Polo Club and was invited to play a match. Though it was English polo, a different style from the Western polo he played back home, his skill impressed the players. They offered him a job, and he took it gladly.
It was the first time he realized that polo could be a career, and a successful one at that.
"Because I came from such a small town, I didn't know what was out there," Koehler says. "I'd read in a magazine that there was polo in Denver and so I went to go visit."
The region was rife with polo activities, and for six years he played every match he could find, which included frequent charitable events such as the Denver Polo Classic, a benefit for the Denver Active 20-30 Children's Foundation. The men's club hosted benefits for local nonprofits by providing duck races and lively polo entertainment.
Koehler made a name for himself in no time. As player three, he was the tactical leader, the position that equates to a quarterback. Though he was a highly rated player, he had an affinity for forming teams of underdogs. When these alternate teams started winning against renowned players and taking the title at the biggest championship of the year, people started to notice -- and not just the 4,000 in the audience.
"Bob was ahead of his time when he started using quarter horses in an all-Thoroughbred sport," Allen says. "Today most of the best players in the world are riding some quarter horses.
"He seemed very determined to make a career out of polo ... and was always smart enough to stay out of the 'polo politics' as he charted his successful career."
At the height of his career as a professional polo player, Koehler participated in three matches a week for most of the year by traveling the country.
"South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Texas, Wyoming, Argentina, Hawaii ... polo took me to all these places, all expenses paid and wages," he says.
At the Denver Polo Club, Koehler built his ratings, rode up to 13 horses daily and played polo year-round. Summers were spent in Colorado and winters in Palm Springs, Fla., the American mecca for polo.
"We've been to Wellington, [Fla.] which is the polo capital," Killenbeck says. "People in these world-class polo shops know Bobby and respect him. In ordering a custom mallet, you can mention Bobby and you'll be treated well."
He also learned a lot, mainly from the Argentine polo players who worked at the club. Once he had the opportunity to visit and play polo in Argentina, Koehler realized why they were so good at the sport -- they had been raised in a country that was historically and geographically suited to it, with expansive fields, superior breeds of horses and a long tradition of play.
Traveling the world and spending his life around horses was a dream realized, and it was about to get even better.
THE HORSE, OF COURSE
A client of the Denver Polo Club, Kip Fuller, recognized in Koehler an untapped aptitude for leadership. In 1989, the two formed and co-owned the Columbine Polo Club, which in Koehler's 16 years of management became the largest club in the region with 160 horses and enough property for three polo fields -- daunting, given that each is the size of nine football fields.
As a club owner, Koehler grew from a horse trainer and polo player into a manager and instructor. He rose to the challenge, but found that it came with its own unique dangers.
"I've been fortunate," Koehler says. "I've been in very fast games; I've seen guys go in comas, break necks, legs."
But it wasn't until he began teaching that his own injuries occurred. "I had my face hit, like five times, broke my eye socket and nose several times ... around my eye, I've had bruising, gone to the hospital, all from students."
It's all worth it, he says, to see other people enjoying polo and to see his students become successful players.
Paradise, to Koehler, is a well-kept polo field, a smart and agile horse and a game that doesn't end.
"Hey, it's the horse, of course," Koehler says. "I love the animal, all that. It definitely brings me to it. It's a means to get to the ball. I love being around them, like everything about them, riding, and to train a horse to be a great horse."
NW Profiles on 07/20/2014