Polo Players Edition

JAN 2011

Polo Players' Edition is the official publication of the U.S. Polo Association. Dedicated to the sport of polo, it features player profiles, game strategy, horse care, playing tips, polo club news and tournament results.

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Oswald Newton Marshall was born in St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, on March 2, 1983. He received very little in the way of schooling and by the time he reached his teens he could neither read nor write. In 2002, abandoned first by his father and later by his mother, he managed to find work at nearby Chukka Cove, grooming polo ponies and riding horses, and doing any other odd job he could. Such a background is typical for many Jamaican youths. But coming to Chukka Cove changed Newton’s life. With a need for a better educated workforce, Chukka Caribbean Adventures had become pro- active in trying to provide schooling for employees who wanted to learn. Chukka Cove neighbor and American ex-pat Shelly Kennedy offered to teach any employee of Chukka to read and write, if they wanted to learn. Newton soon became one of her most eager pupils. In 2005 Devon Anderson handpicked Marshall to look after a trio of new dogs at Chukka Cove Farm, now home to the Jamaica Dogsled Team. By 2006 the team was a reality; youthful exuberance and a way with animals propelled Marshall on a journey to the snow and the great outdoors to train with huskies in Minnesota, replacing Devon Anderson as the principal musher of the team. Newton Marshall, far away from his warm Caribbean home for the first time, was stunned by the icy Minnesota air. “I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “I knew it would be cold but I thought it would be like a rainy day in Jamaica.” Right. Even with all of this opportunity, on his return to Jamaica some youthful indiscretions suddenly left Marshall without a job or a place on the team. His poignant story is told in the feature documentary, the first of three films about the life and times of the Jamaica Dogsled Team, produced by Melville and legendary reggae producer Chris Blackwell; the second film, Underdog, produced by AJE Productions of Toronto, documents Marshall’s exploits in the Yukon Quest and earned an honorable mention at the Toronto Film Festival; film No. 3, Cool Mushing, produced by Melville and Buffett, covers Marshall’s 2010 Iditarod run. Now, a book about the whole dog-gone adventure, One Mush, is hitting the shelves to critical praise. Sales of the book support the Jamaica Dogsled Team as well as animal 34 POLO PLAYERS EDITION Newton Marshall crossed the finish line in the 1049-mile Iditarod in 47th position out of 71 after 12 days.

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