In 326 B.C., they thundered across Rajasthan and Punjab in northwest India on their war horses; men in military garb, shouting their battle cries, wielding lances and sabers and bent on conquest.

And 2,300 years later, they came from Rajasthan and Punjab to thunder across the sands of Chappaquiddick on their war horses; men in military garb, shouting their battle cries, wielding lances and sabers, also bent on conquest. But of a different kind.

Back then, the objective was to take the world for Alexander the Great. Now though, the objective is to take to the world the sport whose origins date back to Alexander. And that requires generating interest here in America, starting on Martha’s Vineyard.

First though, to the sport itself. It’s called tent-pegging, a rather benign name for an activity which grew out of mounted warfare.

The name refers to the central discipline, in which riders use lances, swords or bayonets to impale small targets stuck in the ground, symbolically the tent pegs of an opposing army. In theory the riders could swoop on their sleeping enemy, using their weapons to uproot the stakes of their tents, on their sleeping occupants, sowing chaos in the camp at the beginning of an attack.

In practice it grew into a series of disciplines which served to hone the skills of cavalrymen: impaling small pegs driven into the ground, or slashing with sabers at suspended fruit (usually lemons), or collecting rings on their lances. Or combinations of these activities. All done while riding at full tilt.

The exact origins of the sport are imprecise, but it is thought to have been practiced since at least the fourth century B.C. in what is now India and Pakistan. From there it was spread around the world, first by Asian and later by European empires, particularly the British. Thus today you find tent-pegging throughout south Asia, the Middle East, parts of Africa and other places which were former British colonies, including Canada and Australia. But it never took off in one former British colony, the United States.

Heaven knows why. It’s the type of equestrian sport you might think Americans would go for. It’s fast, exciting, lacking the stuffiness of a lot of equestrian sports and it does not require a great deal of expensive equipment. If you have a horse, a pointed stick and a few makeshift targets, you can start tent-pegging.

To be any good at it, of course, you also need remarkable horsemanship and hand-eye coordination, for the “pegs” are small. Traditionally they were stakes of light wood such as palm wood (although some are made of rubber or even heavy cardboard), about a foot long, placed so half is underground and half above. Thus the best place to hit is right at ground level, at the midpoint, where you have the best chance of achieving your objective of carrying away the impaled target. In competition, the pegs range from six centimeters down to three centimeters wide — that’s a little over two and one inches, respectively. Horse and rider must complete a 100 metre course in 7.5 seconds, which equates to a speed of about 30 miles per hour.

In a demonstration for the Gazette this week, the men used slightly larger rubber stakes as targets, and only their eight-foot, metal-tipped bamboo lances, not swords. But they certainly didn’t slow down. With a whoop, each of the uniformed riders — there were two for the demonstration, although competition usually involves a team of four — charged at them at a flat gallop, impressively twirling their lances. As they reached their targets, they leaned down to the side of their mounts to impale the targets.

It was spectacular. They didn’t get the targets every time; there were a couple of misses and a couple more hits which didn’t stick. But given the conditions, on a pretty rough, sandy paddock, riding horses which had never done it until a couple of weeks ago, it was still remarkable.

Which brings the story to how they came to be on the Vineyard in the first place, charging along beaches which are the usual September province of fishermen.

That story goes to the horses they are riding. It so happens that Martha’s Vineyard is home to most of the small number of Marwari horses found outside India. Marwaris are an ancient indigenous breed, long used as cavalry horses.

And that is down to the fact that Francesca Kelly, a resident of the Island, is one of the driving forces behind the National Indigenous Horse Breeding Society of India, a group dedicated to the conservation and promotion of Marwaris.

She and her partners in the society decided there was no better opportunity to promote both a sport and the breed than by attendance at the World Equestrian Games, now underway in Kentucky. They managed to gain inclusion as a demonstration sport.

But there were complications. Raghuvendra Singh, the team manager and secretary of the society of India, takes up the story.

“India now has a ban on the export of these horses, imposed after Francesca bought some in 2000. We couldn’t get the horses from India, so she has been kind enough to loan us her horses.”

And so the team assembled here. As anyone familiar with equestrian events would know, success is usually bred of long relationships between horse and rider, and lots of training. But not this time. They had a couple of weeks.

“We had to get the horses used to the lances and swords and things in this war concept sport,” said Mr. Singh.

But it went better than they dared hope.

“It took about two days to get them used to the lances. And by the third day we were tent-pegging,” said Mr. Singh.

Said Ms. Kelly: “The horses have responded like the proverbial troupers, galloping down East Beach and taking to lances, swords and war cries like the descendants of war horses they truly are.”

Still, it’s been a steep learning curve, and not just for the horses.

“I come from Rajasthan, a northwestern state bordering Pakistan. It’s a desert state,” Mr. Singh said, gazing about at the green and leafy Vineyard landscape.

“I have been here two or three times before, but for the rest of the team it’s their first. In fact, for several of the boys, it is their first time out of India.”

And now they find themselves riding beside the Atlantic Ocean.

And there is that bugbear of all travelers — dealing with the food in a foreign land. There is not a lot of lobster and chowder to be had in Punjab and Rajasthan; they are sticking with Chapatis and dal. Fortunately, one of the team’s grooms doubles as cook.

(They laughed off suggestions the cook be left behind, to address the Vineyard’s sad lack of Indian cuisine.)

And there are other difficulties.

“We usually have four riders in a team, but here we are doing it with three,” said Mr. Singh. “Three riders, two grooms. I am doubling as rider and manager.”

But someone, they are adamant, had to show the flag at the world games.

“For whatever reason, the Indian Equestrian Federation didn’t get their act together,” said Ms. Kelly. “So we just got to it. We decided we were going to represent India.”

It’s a small operation, but a well-credentialed one. The team coach, retired Army colonel Sartrap Singh, is the former secretary general of the Equestrian Federation of India, has worked in coaching in a number of countries, and over recent years has been a prime mover in standardizing the sport internationally.

They also brought a commentator, Kamalbir Singh, a U.S. citizen who lived here for more than 20 years before returning to India about five years ago, to explain the finer points to the American audience.

Their ultimate aim is much bigger than simply putting on a good show as a demonstration sport in Kentucky. They aim to make tent-pegging an Olympic equestrian event.

They think they are pretty close.

In 1982, the sport took a big step in international recognition when it was accepted by the Olympic Council of Asia for inclusion in the Asian games.

According to Colonel Singh, tent-pegging now is a competition sport in about 30 countries.

“I think we need another six or seven countries, and we will have a compelling case for inclusion,” he said.

“We have come to try to get this country interested in the sport so ultimately the sport can compete in the Olympics.”

When it was suggested to Cololnel Singh that perhaps the name tent-pegging did not fully convey the excitement of the sport, he explained that it could have been worse.

Originally, he said, back in the days of Alexander the Great, the targets of the lancers were not enemy tents at all, but the elephants which opposing armies used in battle. The aim was to drive the lances into the feet of the elephants, causing them to unseat the mahouts and hopefully stampede back on their own forces.

“So, you see, tent-pegging is a better name than ‘toe-sticking’,” he smiled.