Born and raised on Maui, champion polo player and horse raiser Tiamo Hudspeth has risen to international prominence in the sport. Hudspeth attributes her success in part to the many Hawaii people who helped her along the way. Tiamo Hudspeth/Photo courtesy

What began as horse-riding lessons for a Christmas gift has turned into a career for Tiamo Hudspeth — a national horse trainer, manager and champion polo player from Maui whose teams have won three U.S. titles in women’s polo this year.

“My career has taken me all over the world, including Canada and India,” she said in an interview with The Maui News.

Traveling in a big rig carrying 12 horses and speaking over the phone, Hudspeth said she is living her dream as she headed from Texas to the West Coast to participate in her last match of the year, the U.S. Pacific Coast Circuit Women’s Open.

Hudspeth, who was born on Maui, has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated India and in POLO magazine. She has translated her passion of riding and raising polo ponies into competing with women and men.

She recently was the only woman competing in a nine-team, mixed national polo match in Texas. Hudspeth’s team nearly took first place in the December match, even though she had just recovered from what could have been career-ending injuries in October.

There is a lot of muscle in Hudspeth’s 5-foot-5, 150-pound frame, and she possesses a certain kind of toughness in the sport that requires quickness, strength and resilience while riding a 1,000-pound mare who can catch a toe and topple to the ground.

“Her front leg just disappeared,” Hudspeth recalled of the October accident during a training exercise. “I didn’t have a chance to tuck and roll.”

Hudspeth suffered injuries to her face and head in the fall including a broken nose, concussion and nearly a broken neck.

“I’m holding my face together,” she recalled. “I couldn’t eat or walk for a while and probably lost 10 pounds.”

But friends rallied around her to help, and less than three weeks later, she scored the match-winning point and was named the Most Valuable Player at the USPA Women’s Handicap on Nov. 17. The horse is also expected to recover.

Hudspeth attributes her success to a string of people in Hawaii and the continental U.S. who believed in her and included her in polo competitions that were predominantly played by men.

“I’ve had to compete against men my whole career,” she said.

In the last 10 years, she’s been enjoying the rising tide in popularity of women’s polo, watching seasonal matches grow into league competitions.

Looking back at where it all started for her, Hudspeth recalled how her aunt Debbie Wilson, a barrel racer and bull rider, gave her free horse riding lessons as a Christmas gift when she was about 7 years old. She later took more riding lessons at Kula Ridge Stables.

“I loved it,” she said.

An anonymous donor paid for Hudspeth to continue her riding lessons in return for her cleaning the stalls and helping to feed and groom the horses at Kula Ridge.

At one point, riding trainer Jacquie Becker at Kula Ridge asked Hudspeth what her dream was.

“I told her I wanted to be in the Olympics,” Hudspeth recalled. “She said, ‘OK, that’s what we’re going to train for.’ She was the kind of lady that allowed me to dream.”

Becker’s husband, Tom, also played for the Maui Polo Club and chose Hudspeth to serve as a groom for him. Then there were other polo players on Maui and Oahu such as Herman DeCoite, Kimo Huddleston and Ronnie Tongg who helped out as well.

Hudspeth’s friend Lynn Baldwin and Washington state rancher George Gill helped Hudspeth make the transition to playing polo nationally, allowing her to train horses while playing polo.

She worked for four years for Steven Armor’s A F Pony Farm, where polo horses were bred and raised and she saddle-broke about 10 to 12 horses a year.

Hudspeth played in U.S. Polo Association matches and spent a summer competing in Wyoming against American and international players.

At age 25, she started a program with producer Alston Beinhorn at San Ysidro Polo in Texas, where polo ponies were bred, raised and trained.

“That was a dream come true,” she said. “I really love training horses.”

Hudspeth said she learned her work ethics from her mother, Misty, a professional massage therapist at a top resort on Maui.

“There’s not a harder worker, and she’s so kind and loving,” Hudspeth said.

This year, Hudspeth has had her best year in polo competition yet, being a part of teams that won the U.S. Women’s Arena Open, the U.S. Women’s Handicap Open and the U.S. Women’s Arena Handicap.

In the Women’s Arena Open, she along with Oahu rider Jade Hiltabrand and Stephanie Massey of Texas won the finals. Hudspeth said her team relied on a strategy in which each of the three players contributed to the victory.

Hudspeth said she was particularly happy to see Hiltabrand as a player. Hiltabrand was one of the youths she supported by helping interscholastic teams from Hawaii compete at national matches.

“I’m really hoping I can pave the way in polo for young people from Hawaii,” she said.