Five games on tap for Sunday at the International Polo Club
By Alex Webbe
Polo fans who have felt deprived of the spectacle of the game because of recent rains will get more than their fill on Sunday with five teams on tap in the 2016 Joe Barry Memorial Cup at the International Polo Club.
Heavy area rains have put a damper of the last two Sundays of polo forcing play to be accelerated, and the most equitable approach for both horses and players was to load up Sunday’s competition with all ten teams taking to the field in a five-game presentation.
In an 11am game Coca-Cola (Gillian Johnston, Sugar Erskine, Julio Arellano and Steve Krueger) is scheduled to face Palm Beach Illustrated (Nacho Badiola, Jared Zenni, Facundo Obregon and Jesse Bray) Both teams have identical 1-1 records with Sunday’s game being a potential make it or break it opportunity to advance to Wednesday’s semifinal play.
La Indiana (Michael Bickford, Joao Paulo Ganon, Ruki Baillieu and Tommy Biddle) and Tonkawa (Jeff Hildebrand, Gonzalo Deltour, Sebastian Merlos and Mason Wroe) will meet at noon. Both teams will be looking for their first tournament win against two losses.
Dubai (Rashid Albwardy, Carlos Gracida, Diego Cavanagh and Alejo Taranco) continues to impress in their debut season at IPC. Recording consecutive wins over Audi/Millerville and Valiente, Dubai will try to keep an unblemished record against the defending champion, Orchard Hill (Steve Van Andel, Polito Pieres, Peke Gonzalez and Lucas Criado) at 1:30pm. Orchard Hill opened the tournament with an 11-10 win over Valiente but lost to Audi/Millarville in a Thursday afternoon match, falling to 1-1.
The feature match of the day will present two unbeaten teams (2-0) in Villa del Lago (Jim Zenni, Guille Aguero, Hilario Ulloa and Agustin Obregon) and Enigma (Jerome Wirth, Jeff Hall, Matias MacDonough and Carlucho Arellano). A win by either team will capture a top seed in Wednesday’s semifinal action.
The final game of the day will get started at 4pm and will field Audi – Millarville (Grant Ganzi, Nic Roldan, Julian Mannix and Freddie Mannix) against Valiente (Bob Jornayvaz, Roberto Zedda, Santi Torres and Santi Chavanne). Audi (1-1) needs a win for a shot at a playoff spot while Valiente is looking for positioning in the subsidiary, Bobby Barry Cup, with a victory.
Semifinals for both the Joe Barry Memorial Cup and the subsidiary Bobby Barry Cup are scheduled to be played on Wednesday, Januray27. The tournament (and subsidiary) final is set for Sunday, January 31st.