The Land Rover Arena Polo Masters
The Land Rover Arena Polo Masters took place on Friday 13th February at the home of arena polo, The Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. The game was the highest goal arena polo game ever played, sponsored by Guy Salmon Land Rover of Ascot. The two teams consisted of the finest Arena polo players in the world, with one team ‘Adventure’ comprising of the main body of the 2015 St Moritz Snow Polo World Cup winning team. The other team ‘Embrace’ incorporated Roddy Williams, Johnny Good and Sebastian Dawnay. With ‘Arena Polo’ of this standard the audience was not put off by the ensuing rain and packed the stands fully embracing the Land Rover #Hibernot ethos.
The game commenced with a thrilling first chukka with each team throwing caution to the wind to try and gain an early advantage. With each team flat out and exploring to seek out any weakness in the other the first chukka ended in a 4 goal all draw. With the rain still coming down the crowd’s spirits weren’t dampened as they were enthralled by the terrific game on display. The second chukka commenced as the first had ended with a high speed end to end action keeping the crowd highly entertained. Again each team tried to gain an advantage but no quarter was given and at half time the score remained locked at 8 all.
As a game of this standard deserves, an impressive half time show was provided by our sponsors Guy Salmon Land Rover of Ascot, with a well-choreographed display of the brands iconic current range of vehicles. This climaxed in the showcase of the brand new Land Rover Discovery Sport, which was extremely well-received by the audience. The weather, obviously sensing the launch of a new style icon, provided us with an appropriately timed burst of sunshine.
The sun sensing the importance of this game remained out for the entire second half, which was again a close fought affair, with little to choose between these two top class teams. With the impetus of the game moving backward and forward throughout the second half each team desperately fought to gain the upper hand. In the fourth and final chukka team ‘Adventure’ finally made the decisive breakthrough with a run of top class goals to defeat team ‘Embrace’ with a brilliant final chukka performance, which had the crowd glued to the action.
As the horses were led away at the end of the game came the prize presentation of The Land Rover Cup.
Fittingly for this event the two teams were driven into the arena in the two Land Rover Discovery Sports. The presentation table was the tailgate of a Range Rover positioned as an icon between its two younger siblings.
The Land Rover Cup was presented by Alan Davis, head of business, at Guy Salmon Ascot to the victorious team ‘Adventure’. The Best Playing Pony was Lilly who was played by Johnny Good and owned by Olivia Lamphee; the groom was Jim Smith. The award for Most Valuable Player was our own chairman Jamie Morrison, who wins a Range Rover vehicle for the weekend kindly provided by our sponsor.