The sun is shining on the green velvet pitches of Ascot Park Polo Club, the flowers are out along the edge of the woods and I am about to play my first chukka. “How do you feel about people swearing?” asks my 26-year-old Argentine teacher, Danny.

“Oh, fine, no problem,” I say, gathering my reins in one hand and holding my stick aloft like an Apache in a raiding party. Minutes later the air in the practice arena is blue with terrible oaths, most of them uttered by me.

Earlier that morning I’d sat on a wooden horse, leant over and walloped a ball clean across the grass, time and time again; forehand, backhand, over the other side. “Great!” Danny said admiringly. “You’re much better than most people I teach.” He probably says this to everyone but I didn’t care; I felt terrific. We progressed to the arena to try it on a cantering pony: trickier, but I got the hang of it, up and down the length of the pitch with Danny sending the ball in a nice straight line in front of me.

But oh, dear, the real thing: eight of us out there, always someone else’s damn horse between you and the ball, ghastly scrums and flailings, futile attempts to “ride off” your opponent by barging your horse’s shoulder into his. Play turned back up towards the opponents’ end and as I urged my pony in pursuit, legs flapping inelegantly, there were faint echoes of pony club gymkhana races. Then — oh, miracle — there was the ball trickling along, perfect line, open goal: I swung my arm, dropped my shoulder, took aim and someone hooked my stick with his. Amazingly you’re allowed to do this; in fact I did it myself a few minutes later, and very satisfying it was, too, earning a little ripple of applause from the three people watching us over the top of the arena’s wooden walls.

Polo started life in Persia, possibly as early as the 6th century BC, played between elite cavalry troops as training for battle. It spread to India, Constantinople, Japan and China. The sport came to Britain in the 19th century and was a relatively slow, polite minuet of a game until the Americans speeded it up to full gallop.

In England today polo is a sport favoured by princes — Charles, William and Harry all play — and a Home Counties subset of the pink shirt and Bollinger brigade. There are only 4,000 players here and spectators are generally friends of the players — it doesn’t draw the crowds.

At a competitive level the sport relies on the deep pockets of a wealthy patron, who typically owns a string of ponies and hires professionals to play with him. It costs millions a year to run a team in the sport’s premier league. The Cartier International is the Cup Final of polo, held each summer at Windsor Great Park. While there is plenty of new money in the game, some people may still find themselves beyond the pale: Katie Price, aka Jordan, was barred from the Cartier tournament despite putting up £6,000 for a table.

But there is a push to widen the appeal of the game. According to Victoria Grace, a director of Ascot Park and one of four polo-playing daughters of the owner, Peter Grace, 85 per cent of people who come to learn polo there have never ridden before. But, she says, learning to ride well is key: “Seventy-five per cent is horse work; if you want to improve your polo you have to improve your riding.” Enthusiastic amateurs may club together to form a team of three and pool the cost of adding a professional to help them up the rankings.

The Schools and Universities Polo Association now includes a few state schools and two years ago the championship was won by a Berkshire comprehensive — though the team members were probably not drawn from the local council estate.

You no longer need to be posh to play polo but you do need money. Even if you hire your mount it will cost a minimum of £80 on a pay-per-ride basis, and owning one will set you back £105 a week just in livery fees. A decent pony costs upwards of £5,000 and you really need at least two: top players get through up to ten in a match as mounts can tire quickly. Danny needs to earn about £15,000 a year from playing and teaching just for the upkeep of his ponies.

Women are late adopters of polo, though not for want of trying — the first top female player in the US had to disguise herself as a man for years and the Guards Polo Club kept women out of the game until almost the end of the 20th century, finally relenting under the combined pressure of the four Grace sisters who now run international women’s polo. These days female players make up more than half of recruits.

Most of the women I encountered at Ascot Park were of the willowy, yummy mummy variety — and just as well. Shallow it may be, but the de rigueur uniform of white jeans is almost enough on its own to deter one from taking up the game. They look great on Jodie Kidd, who plays in the British women’s team, but for the rest of us, sadly, the Essex girl look is difficult to avoid.

I loved my morning’s polo: nobody was snobby and because I’ve ridden all my life I could concentrate on playing the game. And it really gets your dander up: that evening I went to my usual weekly game of tennis and astonished myself by hitting the ball twice as hard as usual. I think I must have discovered my inner testosterone.