Drive up Whitney Lane on a Sunday morning in season and you'll likely see horses working the near field, riders in helmets running drills before a match. Ask a longtime neighbor what club that is and you'll probably hear "Meadowbrook," the name that's been attached to this stretch of Old Westbury for longer than most of the surrounding houses have stood. Check the schedule online, though, and a second name shows up just as often: MB Polo Club. Same address. Different join date on file with the United States Polo Association. Different manager. Different season.
That's not a branding error. It's two clubs, both headquartered at 50 Whitney Lane, and understanding the difference explains a lot about why the polo calendar here can look inconsistent if you're only half paying attention.
One Field, Two Entries in the National Registry
The United States Polo Association keeps a club-by-club record of every member organization, and the Old Westbury address carries two separate listings. The older one is Meadowbrook Polo Club, with a USPA join date of January 31, 1890. It plays a modest outdoor goal level of 0 to 4, has one indoor arena, no stabling, and runs a season split between June through September and October through May.
The newer listing is MB Polo Club, which joined the USPA on February 15, 2023. It plays a considerably higher outdoor goal level of 4 to 8, has stabling on-site, runs no arena polo at all, and keeps a season of May through October.
Two clubs. One set of fields. Different managers listed on file, too: Robert "Bob" Ceparano for Meadowbrook, Brandon Phillips for MB Polo Club.
| Meadowbrook Polo Club | MB Polo Club | |
|---|---|---|
| USPA join date | January 31, 1890 | February 15, 2023 |
| Typical season | June–September, October–May | May–October |
| Outdoor goal level | 0 to 4 | 4 to 8 |
| Arena polo | Yes, 0 to 3 | None played |
| Stabling on-site | No | Yes |
| Club manager | Robert Ceparano | Brandon Phillips |
If you've ever tried to figure out what's playing on a given weekend by checking one source and coming up with a schedule that doesn't match what you saw drive by, this is why. You were probably looking at one club's calendar while the other one's horses were on the field.
Why the Name Split Happened
The historical thread makes more sense once you know the field's actual timeline. Polo on this ground traces back to 1879, when a handful of Long Island riders started playing in the infield of the Mineola Fairgrounds racetrack. The club that grew out of that, originally styled Meadow Brook, was formally incorporated in 1881 and built its first dedicated field in 1884. For three decades starting in 1923 it hosted the U.S. National Open, and in 1928 its fields drew more than 100,000 spectators over three days for the Cup of the Americas against Argentina, a level of attendance that's hard to picture on a residential Long Island road today.
World War II thinned the club out, and in 1954 the original grounds were razed for construction of the Meadowbrook Parkway. The club moved to Jericho, then lost that ground too when it was sold for development in 1968. What came next was, in effect, a restart: Meadowbrook's players established a new Meadowbrook Polo Club in Old Westbury, the version that eventually earned the club its Open Championship hosting duties again in 1994 and 1995, largely credited to the revival efforts of longtime club chairman Al Bianco and his wife Barbara.
So the "oldest continuously operating polo club in the United States" claim, which the club still makes, is really a claim about lineage and name, not one unbroken stretch of the same turf. The field has been rebuilt from scratch at least twice already. MB Polo Club, formed under owner Chetan Krishna and registered with the USPA in 2023, is arguably a third act in that same pattern: a new operating entity built around the old name, running its own tournament calendar, staff, and season on the same historic ground.
What's Actually Running the Fields This Season
Under Krishna's ownership, MB Polo Club has expanded beyond the Whitney Lane fields to include Bethpage Polo Field and grounds at Caumsett State Park, giving the club three distinct venues rather than one. The home field in Old Westbury includes Hickox Field, named for John V. Hickox, one of the club's founding figures.
On staff, Brandon Phillips manages day-to-day operations and also plays for the club's Dracarys team. Phillips splits his time between Wellington, Florida and Old Westbury and has played at as high as a 6-goal handicap over his career. The academy side added Roberto González as director, a member of the well-known Gracida-González polo family with decades of high-goal coaching experience, including work with international squads.
The 2026 outdoor tournament calendar at the 4-to-8 goal level ran two windows this year, July 8 through July 30 and August 4 through August 28. That August bracket has already wrapped as of early September, which is worth knowing if you've been checking for tournament-level matches and coming up empty this month. But the fields don't go dark once that bracket closes. Both clubs list September within their typical playing season, and MB Polo Club runs a standing weekly offering separate from the tournament schedule: the Gold Coast Sunday League, held Sunday mornings at 10:30, structured as instructional and social play with professional players and horses included rather than a headline match.
That's the easiest entry point for a resident who wants to see polo without tracking a tournament bracket. It runs on the calendar, every Sunday, in season, regardless of who won or lost the last high-goal tournament.
The Field Doubles as a Village Gathering Spot, Too
Beyond the USPA calendar, the Village of Old Westbury has in the past coordinated with the club to host a Village of Old Westbury Cup event on the grounds, opened to residents as a community match rather than a competitive USPA fixture. It's a reminder that the fields on Whitney Lane serve a dual purpose: part working polo club, part shared civic backdrop for the village around it.
What This Means for a Sunday Drive
If you live near Whitney Lane and want to catch a match without guessing, the practical takeaway is simple. Ignore the assumption that there's one polo calendar to check. There are two clubs with two managers and two rosters, and the higher-goal August tournament window has already closed for the year. What continues, at least through the fall stretch of the season, is the Sunday League at 10:30 in the morning, run under the newer MB Polo Club banner, on ground that's carried the Meadowbrook name since long before the parkway, the relocation, or the current ownership ever entered the picture.
It's a small piece of local infrastructure that most drive-by descriptions flatten into one sentence: historic polo club, Old Westbury, established 1881. The more accurate version is a field that's been rebuilt, renamed, and reorganized more than once, currently operating under an owner who took over the USPA registration in 2023 and built a three-venue footprint around a 145-year-old name.
Sun Sha Team pays attention to details like this because the same instinct that separates two overlapping polo clubs at one address is the instinct that goes into pricing a home correctly in a neighborhood where history and current ownership don't always tell the same story. If you're curious what that kind of attention looks like applied to your own Old Westbury property, Sun Sha Team offers a Get a Free Home Valuation to walk through it.
