By Arun Upadhayay 
Udaipur, March 5: Not every teenager from Udaipur wakes up at dawn, heads to the stable, and spends hours on horseback before school. But then, Shivaansh Singh Shaktawat is not every teenager.
At an age when most boys his age are glued to their phones or arguing over cricket scores, this young lad from Udaipur is out on the polo field, mallet in hand, riding hard and playing harder. He is a student at Mayo College in Ajmer, one of India’s oldest and most respected schools, and quietly, match by match, he is building a name for himself as one of the youngest and most exciting polo talents in the country right now.
A City That Runs on Legacy
To understand Shivaansh, you first need to understand where he comes from.
Udaipur is not just a tourist city with pretty lakes and old palaces. For those who live there, especially in families with Rajput roots, there is a way of life that still carries the old values. Discipline. Honour. A certain quiet pride in doing things properly. Polo fits naturally into that world. It always has.
Shivaansh is the son of Bhuvneshwari Jadeja Shaktawat, a well-known celebrity skin coach with a sizeable following, and Yudhveer Singh Shaktawat, a respected businessman from the city. Between the two of them, they have raised a boy who takes his sport seriously without losing his feet on the ground.
On the Field, He Plays as He Means It
Here is the thing about polo that most people outside the sport do not quite grasp. It is not just about riding fast or hitting the ball hard. The best players are the ones who can hold two things at once, fire and patience. Aggression and control. The instinct to charge and the wisdom to wait.
By all accounts, Shivaansh has found that balance early. People who have watched him play describe a youngster who is confident without being careless, aggressive without losing his head. He rides with purpose and reads the game well, which at his age is genuinely unusual.
Ask him about it, and he will tell you himself. “Polo is a team sport, and effective communication and coordination among players are crucial for success,” he said, speaking about what drives him. “Each player has a specific role, and they must work together seamlessly to outmanoeuvre their opponents, as well as respect their opponents and horses.”
That bit about respecting the horses might seem like a small thing to say. It is not. Plenty of young players treat the horse like a vehicle. The ones who go on to truly excel in polo are almost always the ones who figured out early that the horse is a partner, not equipment. That Shivaansh thinks this way at his age says more about where he is headed than any trophy could.
Jodhpur, Delhi, and Beyond
He has not been sitting in Udaipur waiting for opportunities to come to him. Shivaansh has been travelling, competing, and testing himself against players from across the country.
He played at the Jodhpur Polo Season in both 2023 and 2024. For anyone who knows the Rajasthan polo scene, Jodhpur is a big deal. It draws serious players from established families and top schools, and showing up there once is fine, but showing up two years in a row and holding your own is something else entirely.
He has also competed at the IPA Sub Junior Nationals in Delhi, organised by the Indian Polo Association. That is a national stage. Not every young player gets there, and not every young player who gets there leaves an impression. The fact that Shivaansh has been part of that circuit puts him in a small group of junior players the polo world is beginning to pay attention to.
His home ground is in Udaipur, but he has clearly outgrown the idea of staying comfortable. That willingness to travel and compete, to put himself in unfamiliar arenas and measure up, is one of the quieter signs of a serious sporting temperament.
Mayo College: Where Champions Are Shaped
There is a reason polo families across India send their children to Mayo College in Ajmer. The school has been around since 1875, and its relationship with equestrian sport runs deep. The polo infrastructure there, the coaching, the stables, the culture around the sport, is the kind of thing that gives talented young players a real chance to grow properly.
For Shivaansh, being at Mayo is not just about academics. It is about being in the right environment at the right time. He trains within a system that treats polo as a serious discipline, not a hobby for the weekends. And that makes a measurable difference.
Awards, Recognition, and a Growing Reputation
Along the way, he has picked up recognition for his performances. Multiple awards for skill, dedication, and contribution to polo have come to him, which tells you that the people within the sport who matter have already noticed him. In a world as niche and word-of-mouth-driven as Indian junior polo, that kind of reputation is not easy to earn and not easily forgotten.
Why Does Any of This Matters
Polo in India sits at an interesting moment. It has always been an expensive sport, concentrated among a fairly small number of families and institutions. But there is a genuine push now to grow the competitive base, bring in more young talent, build proper pathways from junior to senior level, and make the sport’s future less dependent on who your grandfather was.
Players like Shivaansh are exactly what that future needs. Not just talented, but grounded. Not just competitive, but thoughtful about what the sport actually requires of you. He is not chasing polo for glamour. He is chasing it because he loves it, and you can tell.
He is young, he is still learning, and the biggest matches of his life are still ahead of him. But from everything visible right now, Shivaansh Singh Shaktawat is the kind of player Indian polo will be hearing about for a long time.
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Prakash Nair