Gold Cup titalists hit by injury but rally to win
By Herbert Spencer
Jean François Decaux’s La Bamba de Areco rallied to squeak past Nick Clarke’s Salkeld 10-9 Wednesday to win their first match for the 2010 Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup despite last minute changes in their line-up.
La Bamba, winners of the 2009 Gold Cup, is the only one of 20 teams in Cowdray Park Polo Club’s British Open to feature two 10-goalers, Gonzalito and Facundo Pieres. The Pieres brothers are the world’s second and third ranked players.
But on the day high-scoring Facundo was sidelined with a pulled riding muscle, forcing the team into a new and untried line-up. Facundo and 2-goaler Ed Parsons were substituted with Diego Cavanaugh and Juan Ambroggio, both handicapped at 6, to give the squad their 22-goal aggregate.
Without Facundo, the reconstituted La Bamba squad struggled to stay in the game and were trailing 3-6 at half-time in the match at Great Trippetts. They rallied and took the lead at 8-7 for the first time only in the fifth chukka and held on to win the game 10-9.
In the day’s other two matches, Max Gottschalk’s Les Lions II swamped Roger Carlsson’s Billingbear Park 13-8 at Les Lions Farm and Jerome Wirth’s Enigma beat the Magors’ Panthers 12-11 at Cowdray Park.