Dear members, players, family and friends

As you all are very aware we have been and are continuing to go thru a very complicated and ambiguous time in our world right now. It goes without question of how fortunate we all are to be here at the Flying H Polo Club watching and playing polo with dear friends and family. Many of us can relate to the peace and sense of normality that Sheridan has given us compared to the places we left behind to be here.  It is for this reason I feel a deep responsibility to share the following message with you all as I am constantly looking to the horizon trying to figure out how to keep us all safe and be able to continue to enjoy everything the club and community has to offer.

As many of you know I keep a close contact with health and family advisors.  We are at a moment currently which I believe the COVID status of Sheridan is beginning to change in an upward projection.  As of yesterday and today there have been more positive cases in Sheridan county, this is largely due to the increase of tourism traffic which have come here for many of the same reasons we have come here. 

I believe that we have taken a proactive approach with not only the guidelines we have set up for spectators, but also with the over 100 COVID tests that were completed by players, staff, family and friends.  The fact of the matter is that all of this testing only gave us a snap shot which came with an incredibly short shelf life. Meaning a negative result only meant that you were literally negative the moment they swabbed your nose, but we felt that as long as we all tested negative for COVID that integrating into Sheridan where cases had been almost nonexistent would come with a very low risk of contracting the virus. Unfortunately, I think all the negative results combined with the normality and isolation of Sheridan has given us all a false sense of security.  I have had some negative feedback of how we are conducting ourselves at the games with the clubs expectations of social distancing.  I want to be very clear that if we have one positive case that traces back to one of our games that public health will be conducting contact tracing and have the authority to require mandatory quarantine to anyone they feel has been in close enough contact to a positive case regardless if that individual(s) appears symptomatic, and furthermore have the ability to shut us down for a period of time at their discretion. This would be highly problematic for many reasons. Imagine having a groom not be able to come to the barn for two weeks to take care of horses, imagine sitting in your house while we are trying to build teams without you, or worse imagine yourself or someone you care about getting really sick. This is the stark reality of what we are dealing with and I cannot stress enough of its seriousness. 

We are urging everyone to keep these sentiments in mind when you are at the games. We must lead by example. Please encourage each other to practice social distancing. We are not saying don’t hang out and be social, but just do it responsibly. Remember we want to keep the show going, but need everyone’s help and cooperation to do so. I know I sound like a broken record, but stay within your groups that you come with, please limit your car loads to 6 people and park in the designated spots. And as you have all heard a million times before this wash your hands don’t touch your face and use good common senses. 

If we make a real effort with these simple things I’m confident we can keep doing what we all love and came here to do, and equally important to keep sharing it with this incredible community. 

Sincerely, 

Will Johnston