Where Are They Now?
Podger el-Effendi

by Erin Gilmore | Sidelines Magazine, November 2008

Flying falcons in an airborne form of bird abatement is quite an unusual way to spend ones retirement. However, for retired polo pro Podger el-Effendi, a life doing just that is as good as it gets. The native Pakistani retired from professional polo in 1999 as an 8-goaler and the highest rated Pakistani player, but his life continues to orbit around fast and beautiful animals.

With a Cavalryman for a father there was no way but for the boy to take up the game under paternal supervision. “We must have lived in every city in Pakistan,” remembers Podger. Luckily, Podger’s father was a 4-goal player and he gave Podger and his younger brother Wicky a Shetland pony to ride before they reached the age of 10. During this time, Podger also had a few falcons. “We called them hawks in Pakistan,” says Podger and he loved flying and caring for them. But it would be polo that would dominate the majority of his life, and that of his brother. They quickly progressed from stick and ball to full fledged games. An extended post in northeast Pakistan afforded Podger the opportunity to hone his skills at the Lahore Polo Club, which remains the main polo center in the country.  Wicky rose with him in skill, and shares Podger’s claim to fame as the highest rated Pakistani player; he too retired as an 8-goaler.

A mid seventies polo playing tour of America was the precursor to Podger’s permanent move to the states three years later. “I had a pretty good feel of the country, and I got to know a few people on my first trip,” he recalls. “When I wanted to come back I wrote Mr. Tommy Dowd, my mentor at the Potomac Polo Club outside of Washington D.C. He sent me a ticket and that was it.”

He traveled throughout the U.S. during his career, playing for the team of mushroom magnate Fred Fortugno for two years in Pennsylvania at the Brandywine Polo Club and for Dick Albert in Florida and Oklahoma for another three. He spent the rest of his career freelancing all over the states. He played in several U.S. Open Finals and won the Sunshine League with Wilson Ranch, Quatro Banderas and Fort Lauderdale.

After retirement, Podger settled in the Central Coast town of Arroyo Grande, California with his wife, Denise and his 11- year old son, Hissam. He dabbled in international horse sales and coaching, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was just beginning to wonder what he would do with himself when two things happened. First, Podger picked up a book about falcons in a bookstore, and his childhood passion came flooding back. Second, Podger’s friend and farrier Brad Felger mentioned in passing that he was too busy shoeing horses to maintain his contract flying falcons over the city landfill. It was an unusual job but an important one; the mere presence of the predatory birds kept away droves of seagulls that otherwise camped out at the landfill and caused a nuisance.

“It was probably because the landfill was about a mile and a half from the ocean,” explains Podger. “There’d be six or seven thousand seagulls coming in every morning, the place was a mess, and the county told the landfill to find a humane solution for them. As I was already a licensed falconer, I fell right in.”

He now works with a company that maintains a number of falcons trained for Bird Abatement.  Falcon use over landfills has caught on in California and elsewhere, Podger reports that there are falcon programs at all five Central Coast California landfills and several West
Coast airports.

With the last of his high goal string living out retirement in a field on his property, and his childhood passion reawakened in the falcons he flies, Podger looks back and forward on his life with satisfaction. Falconry is not a departure from the norm for this horseman; it is simply the continuation of his lifelong love for speed and grace.

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