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2008 Junior Coaching Clinics will take place as follows:
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| SAPA Coaching Clinic |
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| Bursaries are available from SA Polo Association for Development Players. Please apply, in writing, to SA Polo Association, 197 Innes Road, Morningside, Durban, 4001 stating age, club and school. Also please state whether ponies need to be supplied. |
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Sbu Duma, one of South Africa's most talented young polo players and the first black player to be part of the schoolboys team to play England, is moving towards a bright future. The support which BMW and SAPA rendered Sbu during his school days will stand him in good stead.
For the last year, while Sbu was working to complete his final two matric subjects, his home club, the Lions River Club (in particular Dieter Rowe-Setz) has been working to ensure Sbu's future in polo and in life, with the able assistance of SAPA through Clarke Rattray and with Gidge Norton from Lion's River heavily involved. Sbu has been accepted by the Damelin Equestrian School in Eikenhof in southern Johannesburg, and will take up his place there in February 2008 to study the nine month accredited diploma course in Equine and Stud Management -he will be accommodated at the school. Tuition and accommodation are being sponsored by the Rowe-Setz Family Trust. Dave Evans, of East Rand polo, is working with Dieter, Gidge and Clark to ensure that Sbu has access to good ponies and tuition.
At the same time, through the good offices of his home club, Sbu has been accepted by the Macsteel Maestro Foundation, a foundation set up by the Macsteel Group working with the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, headed by Morne du Plessis. The Macsteel Maestro programme (www.maestro.org) identifies talented youngsters from deprived backgrounds in South Africa, and sponsors them in terms of mentorship, nutrition, medical costs, coaching and the like. Sbu is being supported by Maestro in terms of much needed medical support, nutrition and specially designed exercises to strengthen his body for the demands of the game. Membership of specialised gyms, ongoing mentorship and day to day support as well as basic costs of transport and food are also being met by Macsteel Maestro. This sponsorship is in place and will continue while Sbu is at college.
Finally, application has been made on Sbu's behalf by Dieter Rowe-Setz to the Maybach Family Foundation (www.maybach.org) which sponsors talented youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds all over the world to meet their full potential in international academics and international sport. If accepted, Sbu will be the first black African polo player to have been accepted by the Foundation, and will be mentored and sponsored into the international polo scene from the inception of the sponsorship. Sbu and Dieter met with a representative of the Maybach Foundation in January as a Maybach Foundation representative had travelled from Germany to meet Sbu and the meetings went very well. If Sbu is accepted, his Maybach sponsorship is likely to begin with a documentary being made of his early life undertaken in February 2008, and a trip to the Africa Africa event planned in London for March 28th. At this event, Sbu's documentary will be launched and he will be launched as a new player to the international community.
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| Bursaries are available from SA Polo Association for Development Players. Please apply, in writing, to SA Polo Association, 197 Innes Road, Morningside, Durban, 4001 stating age, club and school. Also please state whether ponies need to be supplied. |
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