Polo Rules Test: Umpire Quiz

Know the HPA rules before the umpire does. 550 questions, 111 calls drawn in 3D on a real pitch, and a mock umpire exam, all of it working offline.

Polo has a reputation for being impossible to learn from the outside. The rulebook is written to be precise rather than readable, the fouls are spatial and hard to picture, and nobody explains what the numbers on the shirts mean. This is the answer to all three.

What is the call?
111 situations drawn on a 3D pitch, with horses and riders you can spin. The ball crosses the back line off a defender's own pony: hit-in or Corner 60? A hook across the pony: legal or a foul? Two players on the exact line, one with the ball on their offside: whose line is it? You decide, then the rule that settles it comes up. Twenty-five of them are on right of way alone, because that is the judgement the whole game turns on.

The rules, properly
550 questions across grass and arena polo, from the HPA Blue Book 2026 and Green Book 2025. Every answer tells you the rule it comes from: what the rule provides, written out in plain English, the clause that governs quoted underneath it, and a link straight to the HPA's own book.

See the fouls
Crossing, the line of the ball, right of way, riding off, the penalties, the Corner 60 and the advantage rule, all animated on the pitch. Fouls make far more sense from above than they do read off a page.

Tactics
What each of the four positions does. Who marks whom, and why it is inverted. Winning the throw-in, taking a knock-in, defending a 60, turning the ball off the boards, making it two on one. How handicaps really work, how to play your ponies through a game, and where the umpires stand. Twenty-six plays, all animated.

Mock umpire exam
Forty questions across every section, thirty minutes, eighty per cent to pass, scored section by section so you know what to go back to.

Glossary
Fifty-eight terms, from chukka to the Hancock Zone, each tied to the rule that defines it. Half of what makes polo impenetrable is the language.

Built to teach
What you get wrong comes back on a widening schedule. Weak spots are drilled automatically. Progress is broken down by section.

No sign-up, no connection needed
All of it lives on your phone and works in the middle of a field with no signal, which is where you want it.

What is included, and what Pro adds
Included without paying: every rule, the glossary, 17 fouls drawn on the field, six tactics, and 10 questions and 5 calls a day. Pro opens unlimited practice across all 550 questions, all 111 calls, all 26 tactics, the mock umpire exam and the spaced-repetition review that stops you forgetting. Pro is 11.99 a year or 2.99 a month in pounds, or the equivalent in your local currency, billed through Google Play and cancelled at any time in your Play subscriptions.

For
- Players learning the rules for the first time
- Anyone taking an umpire test
- Club players who have played for years and never read the book
- Grooms, parents and spectators wondering why the whistle went

Polo Rules Test is an independent study aid and is not affiliated with the Hurlingham Polo Association. In any dispute the published rulebook governs.