I must also stress that Polo is a work of fiction, and none of the characters is based on anyone, except when they are so famous or so central to the polo world – as Ronald Ferguson or Terry Hanlon are – that they appear as themselves. Any resemblance to any living persons or organizations is purely coincidental and wholly unintentional. The polo world, however, is full of legends and wonderful anecdotes, and if an incident or a line of dialogue is attributed to a character in the book, this character is on no way intended to portray the original subject of the anecdote or the speaker of the line of dialogue.

Polo took a long time to write. I am therefore deeply grateful to my publishers at Transworld: Paul Scherer, Mark Barty-King, Patrick Janson-Smith, and all their staff for their kindness and encouragement. I also had marvellous editorial help from Diane Pearson, Broo Doherty and Tom Hartman.

In addition I am immeasurably lucky to have Desmond Elliott not only as my literary agent, but as my best friend.

Polo is a very big book and consequently I owe a vast debt of gratitude to Annette Xuereb-Brennan, Annalise Dobson and Anna Gibbs-Kennet, who bravely deciphered my ghastly handwriting and typed great chunks of the manuscript; and also to Beryl Hill, Diane Peter, Jane Brooks, Chris Ingersent, Verity Tilling and Catherine Parkin, who all typed individual chapters. Thanks should also go to Tony Hoskins and Diane Stevens for driving me to numerous polo matches.

Nor could the book ever have been written without the stoical back-up of Ann Mills, whose obstacle race over the piles of books and papers to clean my study resembled participation in the Grand National rather than a polo match, or Jane Watts, my PA, who spent hours collating manuscripts, transcribing corrections and generally providing cheer and comfort when I despaired the book would ever be finished.