Sue Sally Hale

For years polo players in American wondered about the identity of the shy, moustachioed young man who avoided cameras and never attended the post-game parties. Now, with her death at 65, the remarkable story of Sue Sally Hale has emerged in all its oddity. Hale, of course, was the "young man".

Introduced to the sport as a 12-year-old in the Los Angeles area, she quickly developed a formidable talent, and began playing in competitions. But the US Polo Association tournaments - the prestige matches - banned women from competing, so for nearly two decades Hale played as a man under the name A Jones. Finally, she forced the association to admit her, and today 500 of its 3,600 members are female.

Hale was eventually named as one of the 20 legends of the game by Polo magazine, and she trained scores of players and ponies at the various farms she owned in California and Texas. She died at her 10-acre polo ranch in southern California. Her daughter, Sonny Hale, is the top woman player in America today.

"Sal" Hale, as she was called, was born to the Oscar-nominated screenwriter Grover Jones and former ballerina Susan Avery. Her father died when she was four, and her mother married the renowned Hollywood stuntman Richard Talmadge, who later taught her some tricks about hard horse riding. In childhood, she rode her pony in the hills above a polo field, where she first saw the game.

She resorted to disguise after a visiting team refused to play against her. She pushed her hair under her helmet, flattened her breasts with tape and wore a loose, man's shirt. Her moustache was supplied by make-up artists her stepfather knew in the film studios. After games she would quickly leave the field, go to her trailer and change. Nobody knew of her subterfuge, but occasionally a guest might wonder where that chap Jones had gone.

Hale was sturdily built and as a polo magazine once reported, "could ride like a Comanche and hit the ball like a Mack truck". She had married in 1957, and her husband, Alex Hale, supported her disguise. He witnessed her fury when she was barred and later recalled: "She was not just temporarily angry, but permanently mad at the whole world." The couple divorced in 1976.

After badgering the association to change the rules and threatening to disclose her male masquerade, she was sent a membership card in 1972. Hale described it as "the greatest moment in my sporting life". She continued to tweak the sport's snobs and once played a game astride a mule, to prove that the ungainly looking animal nevertheless had intelligence.

Her determination to demonstrate her prowess led her to ride in games through all five of her pregnancies and once, to finish a game after breaking her leg. She recalled the thrill of "going down a field with seven head of horses broadside, getting bumped by 900lb of horse and man, and just holding that line steady for two seconds to make the shot".

After she began playing openly as a women, she was sometimes threatened by male players. She told them: "Gentlemen, better boys than you have tried." It was another tip from her stepfather: to enrage them so much they lost control of their game.

Hale, who also wrote poetry and sculpted, is survived by her three daughters and one son. Another son predeceased her.

Susan Sally Hale, polo player and trainer, born August 23 1937; died April 29 2003.

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