Origins
Pato, the Game Horseball Came From
Argentina's national mounted sport, and the direct ancestor of every horseball match played today.
The game horseball came from
Pato is the game horseball descends from, and the debt is not vague. The first horseball trials were played with a pato ball, through pato goals, under pato priority rules, using the pato technique for lifting the ball off the ground. In those early years the stirrups were not yet joined by a strap, which meant a rider leaning down for the ball at speed had nothing holding them in the saddle.
Two things carried over almost unchanged. The first is the ball: a body wrapped in a harness with handles, so that a rider can grip it one-handed from ground level. The second is the goal , not a net-mouth but a vertical hoop the ball is thrown through, which is why horseball's target sits three and a half metres above the arena floor rather than at ground level like every other team sport.
What did not carry over was the space. Argentine pato was played over roughly 300 metres, across open country, in a way that suited the estancias it came from and nothing in Europe. The entire early history of horseball is the record of that distance being cut down until the game fitted inside a covered riding school, first as paddock polo and pato de picadero, then as the codified sport of 1979.
Pato itself had a second life in France. It largely disappeared with the Second World War, then returned to public view in its Argentine form through the displays of the stuntman Mario Lurashi, who presented it regularly in the post-war years, one of the threads that kept the idea alive long enough for the French federation to pick it up in the 1970s.
The loop eventually closed. A World Cardon Pato-Horse-Ball Championship was held in Buenos Aires in 2006, drawing Argentina, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom. Two years later Argentina, Brazil and Canada entered the first horseball World Cup, seventy-two years after a French cavalry officer borrowed their game and gave it a different name.
See also: the history of horseball and the other sports played on horseback.
Questions about pato
What is pato?
A mounted ball game and the national sport of Argentina, played with a ball carrying handles that riders lift from the ground and throw through a vertical hoop. The name means "duck", a reference to what the earliest versions used in place of a ball, before the game was regulated into its modern form.
How is pato different from horseball?
Scale, mostly. Pato pitches historically ran to around 300 metres against horseball’s 65, and pato was played across open country rather than in an arena. Horseball also added the three-pass requirement, joined the stirrups with a pick-up strap, and changed the ball. The pick-up technique and the hoop-shaped goal came straight from pato.
Is pato still played?
Yes, in Argentina, where it holds national-sport status. It also reached the international horseball world directly: a World Cardon Pato-Horse-Ball Championship was staged in Buenos Aires in 2006 with ten nations entered, and Argentina joined the horseball field at the 2008 World Cup.