43rd Land Rover International Polo Tournament – Day 23 – Gold Cup
Location: Santa MarÃa Polo Club Sotogrande
Country: Spain
By Victoria Elsbury-Legg
It seemed destined to be a difficult opening day of the Gold Cup in Sotogrande with substitutions and delay in play due to a number of injuries. The High Goal games starting later in the day at 17:00 included a different line up for HB Polo with Dillon Bacon (with an undefeated string of Huntsman win’s under his belt in this year’s Sotogrande Low Goal) and Tomas Garbardini (who has also achieved much success with Seven Sevens in the Medium Goal in Spain) taking the place of the Pailloncy brothers, to ride alongside Ignacio Toccalino and Pite Merlos. With HB Polo leading 6-5 in the fourth, Juan Martin Nero, Matt Perry, Francisco Elizalde and Victor Vargas needed to find some goals in the final chukkas. It was not however, to be Lechuza Caracas’s day as a goal by Pite Merlos secured the first Gold Cup win for team HB Polo at 11-10.
On LP III, it was the Pieres brothers, Jamie Packer and Thomas Brodie who form Ellerston in Sotogrande who met Michael Bickford’s La Indiana (Marcos Araya, John Paul Clarkin and Juan Gris Zavaleta). By the start of the fourth Ellerston were a strong five goals ahead at 10-5. With Juan Gris Zavaleta substituted by Ruki Bailleu in the sixth it was finally Ellerston, now six goals ahead, whose success was achieved by 16 goals to La Indiana’s 10.
Earlier in the day the Gold Cup Medium Goal began at 11am with Seven Sevens beating Woodchester 13-12 and FCT also winning by one goal 10-9 to Los Dragones on PH II. In the following games on the same grounds, Mahra-Esperanza beat Saphhire-Dr. A by 13-11 and Leones narrowly missed out to Lebeau-Courally who had 15 goals to Leones 14.
Later in the Medium Goal at 17:00 Richard Fagan (back from his recent Ireland match at Horse Guards Parade in London) and team Silex won 12-10 over Wild Orchid, whilst in the two later Medium Goal matches unfortunate injuries caused delay in play and substitutions. In team Scapa-John Smith, Ivan Maldonado replaced an injured Juan Griguloi and then in the fifth, with the score reading 9 all, play was stopped to give Equus’s Juan Britos time to recover. Whist on RIO I the El Rosario v Sainte Mesme game was halted for Juan Zubiaurre, who was substituted by Fernandez Llorente. From 3 all in the third, Sainte Mesme won the game 5-4, and on RIO III the final score was Equus 14 to Scape-John Smith’s 12.
Monday 18th August 2014
Gold Cup High Goal
17:00