Idemitsu’s Joanne McFayden has been playing polocrosse for more than 20 years, and recently competed in the Australian Polocrosse Nationals for the first time with her horse Blacky.

Joanne has ridden horses her entire life, but only started playing polocrosse when she was about 19 years old living in Moree.

“I stayed in Moree for a while and then I moved back to my hometown of Armidale and started playing in the Hunter Valley with Quirindi and I’ve been with them for around 13 years.

“I love that it is a very social sport, especially in your younger years. It’s a team sport so you get to play with your friends and there’s always great music and entertainment at competitions.

“Polocrosse is played all over Australia, and we just had the World Cup with players travelling to South Africa to play and Australia were runners up!”

Polocrosse is an action-packed team sport often referred to as “rugby on horseback” and is a combination of polo and lacrosse. It’s played outside on horseback and each rider uses a cane attached to a racquet head with a loose net where the ball is carried.

The objective is to score goals by throwing the ball between the opposing team’s goal posts. 

“I’ve played club and zone level polocrosse but never Nationals until now.

“There’s a selection process to make it to Nationals so there’s a group of selectors who choose the teams. I made it onto the Masters Women’s combined side which is a side made up of players from various states who play against NSW and Queensland.

“We didn’t win, we held on for quite a while against NSW and Queensland. NSW did very well winning a lot of the competitions across the week of Nationals at Chinchilla. 

“I may not have won, but I came away from the event with heaps of new friends. It was an amazing event, and the atmosphere was incredible.

“The horse I played on at Nationals was Halsted’s Black Rain. He’s a 16-year-old gelding, bred by my partners’ family. He was started by a young man named Tom who played a lot of representative polocrosse on him, and I’ve been lucky enough to end up with him in his later years.

“He needs an extra bit of love and care.”

Joanne isn’t the only one riding Blacky, she’s sharing him with two of her nieces.

“My two nieces play and travel with me. It’s such a great family sport.

“They have both played for NSW and my aim is to keep them with good horses and keep them in the sport.”

Joanne is not only a crucial part of the team on the field, but she also plays a crucial role behind the scenes helping operations at the Quirindi club run smoothly.

She’s also on the Polocrosse Association of NSW Board.

Joanne is the HSECT Compliance Coordinator at Boggabri Mine and has been there for almost six years.

“I started with a contract company as an account manager for recruitment and labour hire and then I moved into payroll and then across to human resources. Now I do compliance in the safety team.”