Back To The Future

Max Secunda instructs 9-year-old Harrison Reicher. Harrison is one of several up-and-coming players under Max’s tutelage at BG Polo & Equestrian Vero Beach and in the Vero Beach Polo Club.

It’s a Sunday morning in early January at BG Polo & Equestrian Vero Beach, and 6-year-old Weston Mead has just completed a polo lesson with Max Secunda. While Max assembles the right-size horses and mallets for his next students, three children huddle around Weston, who holds his mom’s iPhone in front of him. The kids are focused on a voice-recognition application called “Siri,” which answers their questions in a pleasant, almost robotic, female voice. 

“Ask Siri what her favorite animal is,” says Maeve Reicher, age 10, the oldest of the bunch and the only girl in the group. Weston raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. 

“Ask her what her favorite color is,” Maeve tries again.

“What’s your favorite color, Siri?” Weston says into the phone, shrieking with glee as Siri starts to answer. 

“My favorite color is … it’s sort of greenish,” Siri says mechanically. Now they all shriek: Weston; Maeve; her brother Harrison, age nine; and Max’s son, Finn, age seven.

Weston gets bold. “Siri, what is Finn?” he asks. 

There’s a pause. “I’m not sure about that,” says Siri. The kids double over.

Finn is a promising polo player, according to Weston’s mom, Joy, who explains over peals of laughter that all the kids have serious potential. All four can now canter and connect with the ball, which is no small feat considering that three of the children are half the horses’ height, and Maeve is only slightly taller than that. Once situated in their saddles, they wield heavy mallets longer than they are – long enough to reach the ground.