Confident victories for King Power Foxes and Britannia El Remanso in today’s Cartier Queen’s Cup matches
King Power Foxes 12 – 9 La Indiana at Billingbear Park
The holders of the Cartier Queen’s Cup, King Power Foxes, started their 2016 campaign with a confident victory over Michael Bickford’s La Indiana. There was a change of line-up for the Foxes in this game as their patron, Top Srivaddhanaprabha was in Thailand with his Premiership-winning Leicester City Football Team. Even Top had probably not predicted his other Foxes team doing quite so well in the English football season and no doubt hopes that his polo team replicate that success. His place today was taken by the experienced high-goal patron Guy Schwarzenbach, who had won the La Martina 15-goal tournament with his own Black Bears at Guards Polo Club just four days’ earlier.
It was a tough start for La Indiana, who are making their debut in this tournament, being paired against the current champions for their first game. That said, Nic Roldan, Agustin Merlos and Julian de Lusarreta refused to be awed by their opponents and never gave up hope of reeling in the Pieres boys. Not surprisingly horsepower had a huge part to play in this result. King Power Foxes won any race down the field and the team looked comfortable throughout the six chukkas. La Indiana will probably find their next game a little easier and are definitely a team to watch over the next few weeks.
Britannia El Remanso 16 – 7 Sifani at Coworth Park
The effectively all-pro team of Britannia El Remanso put up a great performance to comprehensively win their first game of the 2016 Cartier Queen’s Cup. These boys, patroned by Charlie Hanbury, produced a winning strategy and every member of the team played their part. James Harper especially was superb at back, while Ollie Cudmore had a great game, successfully keeping his opponents off the ball. Hilali Noordeen’s Sifani, were not so together and this was reflected in the final score. This is Hilali’s third season in the high-goal, returning every year just because he loves this level of the sport. However, he does have three hugely experienced pros in John Paul Clarkin, Luke Tomlinson and Juan Gris Zavaleta and they will only get better as they play more together in the coming weeks.
Britannia El Remanso’s next opponents will be Dubai next Tuesday and if these young English players produce another cohesive performance like today’s they may well cause some trouble for Adolfo Cambiaso and Juan Martin Nero. This is definitely a game to put in the diary!
Next matches – Saturday 21st May
12 noon Apes Hill v HB Polo at Coworth Park
3pm RH Polo v Valiente/Dubai. The winner of this game will receive the Royal Windsor Horse Show Cup