| Interview
with
Tommy Lee Jones -
By
PoloLine and PoloBrief
Photos: PoloLine and Alex Pacheco
Man
in Polo
The
interview was held at one of the stables in Tim Gannon´s
(Outback) farmhouse in Wellington, Florida. It was
in such peaceful and quiet environment that Tommy
Lee Jones talked to PoloLine, watched over by the
three women who have the privilege of sharing his
life: Lucille Jones, his mother, Dawn Laurel, his
wife, and Victoria Jones, his daughter.
The
first thing that came to Tommy Lee Jones` mind on
finishing his first polo practice was "this is
the finest thing a man and a horse can do together",
which he repeats every single time he plays polo.
The man who starred The Fugitive (winner of an Oscar
award), JFK, Love Story, men in Black and Space Cowboys,
among many other films, told PoloLine: "Without
a doubt, all of us who play polo have a special affection
for horses. I have my own horses, which I breed; and
I sometimes buy them, too. I often travel to Argentina
to buy them, where the quality of horses is so good".
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|
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Tommy
Lee Jones with his polo manager Luis Echezarreta |
Tell us about the beginning of your relationship with polo.
I started playing polo in California. When I was
going to College, I was an american football player but I
was also interested in theatre, and as soon as I graduated
from College I went to New York and began to work in the theatre,
and in the most picture business a little bit and TV. After
seven years of that, I decided to move to California and work
there. And the move to California gave me the chance to resume
my athletic life, which had languished in New York City. I
started scuba-diving again, and I started roping like you
do in rodeo, which are the two things other than football
that I have ever done. I met some polo players, and one of
them gave me a mallet, another one gave me a ball, and I found
an old, used saddle in the property department of one of the
studios (laughs), and I started tapping the ball around from
the back of my roping horse. The next time I looked up, I
had four horses and I was heading for Santa Barbara!
Do
you remember the feeling you had the first time you
played polo?
Well,
yes. I remember thinking "this is the finest thing
that a man and a horse can do together!" , that
was what I thought.
What's
your definition of a horse?
The definition of a good horse? For polo, of course,
it is…I want to have a horse whose pasterns aren't
too long and has good, strong bones in the legs and
feet; I like a round, big spined- horse rather than
pointed-spined one. Go back down anatomically and I
would certainly like to see big gaskins. A short back
is a good idea, high withers, long, shiny legs, thin
throat latch; fine, even delicate hair with big eyes,
a generous outlook... I would like to see a good deal
of air between the two front legs - I don't want them
both coming out of the same hole. That pretty much goes
all the way around the horse, doesn't it? But nobody
is perfect. Those are all positive qualities that one
looks for. And then, you get into the mental qualities:
some horses don't have a good mind for polo; some of
them can't take the pressure; some of them can't perform
well when they are exhausted. Some of them are stupid.
Some of them are fearful. Some of them go insane. So,
all those qualities have to be brought together for
the polo horse. In human terms, you are looking for
the equivalent of a man that can run a four-minute mile
and has a PhD in rocket science...
Do
you keep your horses here, or do you have some of them
here and others somewhere else?
All
of our made polo horses are here in Florida. We finished
last week, so 14 of them went home.
Do
you make your own horses?
We
make our own horses and we buy them also. We have young
horses in San Saba that are now being brought up, so
that made horses that are playing here this winter could
be turned out and we will dedicate this spring and the
next 120 days to the "green" horses.
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Tommy Lee Jones playing
against Memo Gracida
Tommy Lee Jones with his daughter
Victoria during the interview
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Do
you have Argentine or American horses?
What we do is... when we buy horses, we generally
buy more of them in Argentina than we do anywhere else.
Sometimes we'll buy one in Texas.
In Argentina, there are now
more thoroughbreds, aren't there?
That's right. That is the only kind of horses
that we care to own, absolutely.
Do you practice embryonic
transfer?
No, not at all.
There is a definition of horses
by Alberto Pedro Heguy, that says that polo horses
act according to convenience rather than to feelings,
like women. He compared horses to women, what do you
think?
Well, I don't know that many Argentine women!
(laughs)
It is a pleasure to listen to Tommy
Lee's words. His ranch, "Texas Hill Country",
located very near San Saba County, a 5,000-inhabitants
village where Tommy came to life on September 15,
1946. "Both my parents used to work at different
farmhouses at the same time. It was then common for
women to give birth at home, but my mother decided
to move to San Saba for my birth. They drove 22 miles
to San Saba but, also there were no hospitals, I was
born at a rented house. The truth is, my mother was
young and he must have been bored!"
"San
Saba has changed very little from the day I was born
to this moment", said Tommy Lee. People still
work the land very hard, and, at the end of the day,
drive a few kilometers to be able to relax and have
a good beer. They always remember Tommy Lee´s
parents, and every time they mention him, they do
it as if his name were spelled altogether, in just
one word: "hey there, Tommylee". It is there
that he spends the most peaceful moments outside polo,
working on his garden, fishing or just letting life
flow in a stream nearby.
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Tommy
Lee Jones with Tim Gannon and some friends |
What
do you consider the best in polo? The game, the people,
horses, the show… what do you enjoy the most?
Everything.
It's a big sport. We have, in Texas, Florida and California
what we call the "polo family", that includes
people from all over the world, I suppose: Canada, Mexico,
Argentina, certainly. And the thing that is the most
fun for me is having a team. A team that plays together
and stays together, watching our children grow up together
and play together, watching our horses get old and then
see my kids play on them. That is really the most important
thing. I think without that, you won't win. Of course,
the object of any polo game is to win it, so you could
say that being part of a polo family is the best part
or winning is the best part. But they go together. You
are not going to have one without the other.
Do
you feel that you are a member of a family and not a
movie star in polo?
I find that my friends in polo don't go to
the movies a lot, but they don't care anything about
one's so-called "celebrity". The people that
I live with say "I care about your behavior in
a polo field, I care about the quality of your horse".
And that is the way people treat me.
How
is your polo schedule for the year?
Well,
it changes according to my professional schedule. Ideally,
we play in winter in Florida, and in the hot month of
the summer in Santa Barbara. And then, for the rest
of the year, we will be practicing and playing our green
horses at home in San Saba.
You
play medium goal, don't you?
I have been playing 22 goals. Actually, from
20 goals up.
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San Saba Polo Team
(Luis Echezarreta, Agustin Merlos, Hector Galindo, Tommy Lee
Jones)
Winners of the 22hcp Iglehart Cup, Wellington, January 03
What
is your opinion on Tincho Merlos?
Oh, he is a perfect gentleman. He is a wonderful
person to play with. He is very smart. The thing that
we look for in polo players is presence of mind and ability
to think, willingness to think and selflessness or what
you might call a highly developed sense of team play,
and he has all of those qualities. We don't like hardheads,
we don't like people who appeal for fouls or yell at other
players, or protest at the umpire's decision, we don't
tolerate that. I just think that he is a very, very fine
character. I appreciate the quality of his character as
much as I do his talent, and they are both formidable.
Who do you consider the best
polo player in the world today?
Me (laughs). But other than me, I could say
that… the answer to that question is different
every day, but for many days it is going to be Adolfito
Cambiaso.
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The
complete Interview will be publish at the next Polo Brief
Magazine Edition
|
