I learned to swing in a hitting cage some 40 years ago. Hitting cages and wooden horses have been used to practice the polo swing long before I learned to swing.  Even “10 Goaler” Tommy Hitchcock used a wooden horse (pictured) and had balls pitched to him from all directions. However not that many polo clubs have a hitting cage and most cages are under utilized.

Ever sense “Hall of Famer” Joe Barry taught me how to swing, in an old, run down, hitting cage, I have wanted to have a cage of my own. However there are some draw backs to having your own hitting cage. One problem is that it will not make your neighbors happy and another problem is that where you build a cage is where it stays. If you move, you hate to leave that investment behind. These problems caused me to sketch out my ideas for about 30 years, before I put my thoughts into action.

When I first started to design my cage, I was just thinking of what was important to me, but then I started thinking that wouldn’t it be nice if the cage had a mechanical horse that responded to the rider.  If the cage was portable it could go from club to club. Then I thought that if it was going to be the most advanced training system available it would need to take advantage of digital video and computer aided swing analysis.

Even after sketching the ideas and dreaming of how it would all work, for 3 decades, it still took over a year to build the only, truly portable Hitting Cage that could be set up by one person, in less than an hour. The fact that it uses a mechanical horse that responds to the rider and is designed to be used with digital video and computer aided analysis means that players can work on riding skills as well as swing technique.