Yellow Cab claims Maserati Miami Beach Polo World Cup

April 30, 2012 Game Reports 0

Yellow Cab claims Maserati Miami Beach Polo World Cup

By Alex Webbe

 

For the first time in history the Miami Beach Polo World
Cup ended in a whimper rather than a bang—at least on the playing surface.  After three days of beach polo competition in
the 2012 Maserati Miami Beach Polo World Cup, the finals were rained out with
30+ mile-per-hour winds whipping torrents of rain into the event’s massive VIP
tent and soaking the playing surface to a point that made it unplayable.

With no options left for the final play-off on the beach,
it was proposed that the Yellow Cab Polo Team and The Raleigh polo team faceoff
in dryer climes, at the arena facility at Palm Beach Polo in Wellington, to the
north.

With only one team able to assemble, a forfeit was
reluctantly agreed upon and Simon Garber’s Yellow Cab Polo Team (2-0) was
declared the winner of the 2012 Maserati Miami Beach Polo World Cup.

“This certainly isn’t the way we wanted this to be
decided,” said Garber, “but we fought hard and were confident about our chances
going into the finals.”

“It’s always difficult to reset playoffs when players,
horses and personnel have tournament schedules to keep,” said Alex Webbe,
Director of Polo.  The Raleigh team
captain, Bash Kazi, had business appointments to keep and teammate John Gobin
had already shipped his horses north to compete in tournaments in Aiken, South
Carolina.”

The sport of polo is a transient one as it moves from
club to club, country to country following one tournament after another.  The Maserati Miami Beach Polo World Cup has
traditionally been the culmination of the highest level of polo played in North
America, putting an exclamation on the high-goal season of the International
Polo Club in Wellington, Florida and sending many of these players in different
directions as they become part of new teams in new competitions while the
Florida polo season take a respite for the summer.

An annual favorite that attracts fourteen teams in two
tournaments, this year’s finals ended up being a celebration of the previous
four days of play in a hurricane-like party at The Raleigh hotel, the assigned
“clubhouse for this year’s tournament.

“We were prepared to play on,” offered Bruce Orosz,
President and CEO of The Polo Life, the producer of the event, “but sometimes
Mother Nature wins out.  We’ll be back
stronger than ever next year, and the tradition will continue.”