A love match: City worker Jenny Brown found romance in the arms of her Argentine polo teacher and it led to a new life in Scotland

Published on Sunday 27 June 2010 20:27

ILLOWY blonde Jenny Brown fell into fits of giggles when she first laid eyes on Argentine polo player Luis Ferrarese. Jenny, a keen horsewoman, was living in London when she booked some lessons at a polo club in Essex with two girlfriends for fun in 2006.

"When we saw our gorgeous polo instructor, Luis, my friends and I just started giggling like four-year-olds because he was so good-looking," recalls Jenny. "I never thought for a moment he'd be interested in me, though – I actually thought he liked one of my friends."

Jenny, now 31, grew up in Norwich, but at 16 she and her family moved to Scotland, and she attended Loretto School, in Musselburgh, before reading physics at Edinburgh University. She worked for investment banks, then retrained in real estate, qualifying as a surveyor and finding work with a private property company. She fell in love with polo – even before she fell for her instructor – and within weeks had decided to head 7,000 miles across the world to Argentina to work with Luis during a planned sabbatical from her job.

"I loved polo so much and I thought when I take time off that's what I'd like to do," explains Jenny. "So I asked Luis if he knew anybody I could work for and he suggested I work with him and his horses in Argentina.

"I was quite nave about it. I thought he liked one of the other two girls I'd come with, so I didn't think there was anything between us. But we started seeing each other a few weeks later.

"Just after three months of us being together I realised we were going to be living together and working together in Argentina. I didn't even speak much Spanish."

Luis recalls: "My boss at the polo club had only one rule, and that was never, ever date a client. But I liked Jenny and she felt the same. All the other girls and people in polo were trying to impress and trying to be cool all the time. Jenny was just herself. She was fun and laughing and loving horses. It caught my attention how much she enjoyed it. And as well, she's very pretty and has long legs…

"One day I said I was going to be in London and asked if she wanted to meet up. I couldn't believe it when she opened up her diary and gave me a date for three weeks later. Within those weeks she continued to have lessons and we started dating in secret because I didn't want to lose my job. But at the lessons I always gave Jenny the best horses – and everybody was wondering why Jenny got the horses I usually kept for myself."

Jenny insists it wasn't just Luis's good looks she fell for. "It's a bit cheesy, but I fell for his wit and intelligence," she says. "He's pretty awesome on a horse too."

Luis had already planned to spend half the year in Argentina, training horses at his cousin's ranch in order to bring them to the UK for polo players. On this trip, he took Jenny with him. They returned a few months later to England and decided to move to Scotland last year. They're now married, with 14-month-old daughter Julia, a dog and eight horses, and rent a cottage in the grounds of the Dunglass country estate in Berwickshire.

Life couldn't be more different for them. Jenny has launched a business, Pampeano (meaning somebody from the pampas in Argentina, where the cattle roam), selling polo equipment, as well as quality soft furnishing and leather fashion accessories from Argentina. And Luis, 33, plays and teaches polo.

Scotland might seem like an unlikely setting for a player and a business linked to polo, but Jenny believes there's a market for polo equipment here, as well as for the home furnishings from cushions to patchwork rugs and cow cubes and leather bags, all sourced from Argentina. They also sell to customers across the UK and throughout Europe.

In Scotland, polo is still a fairly small sport, with only about 100 people regularly playing in clubs based in Edinburgh, Perth and Berwickshire, and indoor polo is played in Kinross. It's also popular among a couple of hundred students from the likes of St Andrews, Dundee, Aberdeen and Stirling universities. Polo is usually played outside on an area the size of ten football pitches, with horses galloping at up to 35mph, with four riders in two teams battling to hit a ball through goalposts at each end.

The sport has always had something of a reputation as a hotbed of passion both on and off the field, thanks in part to Jilly Cooper's racy novel Polo. And it also has an image of being elitist and expensive. But in Scotland there's a more informal, family atmosphere and no real sign of groupies chasing the players. Nevertheless, lessons can cost from 50 an hour. And you can rent a pony for 35 per chukka – the term for each seven-minute period of a game – of which there are often four in a club match. Bear in mind, however, that if you get into the sport, you'll also have to pay club membership fees and there's cost of keeping and transporting your own horses – unless you decide to hire them.

Luis says: "Polo in this country is so different to England. It's more like at home in Argentina here. It's relaxed, it's less pretentious. Anybody can play polo. I'd like to change a little of the view of how polo is, that it's not for pretentious rich people. Anybody can play and enjoy polo."

Back home, Luis's dad was a football coach and his family used to breed mustangs to work with cattle, so he grew up surrounded by horses. But he adds: "In Argentina, polo is not a posh sport, it's very cheap and is played by ranchers. My family wanted me to do showjumping instead, which is posher there – but I didn't enjoy that as much."

Jenny agrees that polo is generally associated with poshness. "I've always been a bit embarrassed to say I'm playing polo, because it has such pretentious connotations. But it certainly hasn't been like that for me and Luis. We just really enjoy the horses. It's about knocking the ball around, rather than quaffing champagne at the side. Although these days I don't get to play much. And treading in between chukkas is just us in our wellies, not girls in high heels. It's very down-to-earth. "When I went London I always planned to return to Scotland. Now, having a family, it seemed the perfect time and we got the chance to rent a cottage on my aunt's estate. Polo here is very low-key and nice and everyone is really friendly. There are people from all backgrounds and walks of life. It's about having fun on a horse – not trying to be someone."

Luis was as keen as his wife to move north. "There's something romantic about Scotland, the Scots are proud of their origins and traditions. I read Rob Roy as a child and I had a romantic view of Scotland. It didn't disappoint when I got here. It's an incredible country and the people are incredible.

"I thought at first when I moved (here] that I was going to give up polo and sell all the horses. But I've started giving lessons and I'm really enjoying playing again, so I've changed my mind and now I'm taking it even more seriously."

It's a far cry from his original career plans. Luis was studying at vet school and ran a riding for the disabled scheme for children who couldn't afford therapy. But then his family lost its ranch, a girl he dated at university became pregnant and six months after daughter Anna, now nine, was born, his dad died of a heart attack at 45. Luis was only 22 and had to give up his studies and started working on a ranch where he was introduced to polo. The ranch was isolated, about an hour's drive to the nearest town, Los Cerrillos – meaning Little Hills – with a population of just 150.

After a couple of years, Luis, now divorced, decided he wanted to change his life and become a professional polo player. "I was offered a job in England and I assumed it was to play polo," he said. "But I was taken to the stables and given a broom and told to start brushing! Three months later, a professional guy needed one more player for the chukkas and he looked at me and said, 'Do you know how to ride?' 'Kind of', I replied. So he said, 'Come with me in a chukka'. I scored six goals. A guy watching then offered me work in Australia. I eventually came back to the UK and worked for polo clubs in Cambridgeshire and then Essex, where I met Jenny."

The life here in Scotland is hard work, but more fulfilling. Jenny says: "I had a competitive job before, but I'm more challenged, with a beautiful little girl and the million and one things needed with a young business. I thought I'd eventually set up some sort of property business, but meeting Luis seems to have changed that.

"We work a little bit with property still, but the market is tough now, so Pampeano is my focus, and his is the polo. I love my life now. We live in the countryside surrounded by cows, sheep and horses, and I find myself a thousand times busier and happier than living and working in London.

"My salary is non-existent, as we reinvest all money into the business. We live frugally to make ends meet and I'm happy about that. I suppose I was more motivated by money before. I could afford what I wanted, but it was a fairly meaningless existence. I paid off my then mortgage of an ex-council house in two years, which I suppose has enabled investment into Pampeano, so it was definitely worth it.

"We're very lucky to have found one another. People were unsure when we got together, because it was such a whirlwind romance, and we're both quite hot-headed and feisty – but it keeps life interesting and we're still very much in love."

&#149 For further information go to www.pampeano.co.uk or for details of polo lessons contact Luis on 0789 6991489.