Game Reports

                  Group C

It was with heavy hearts that the polo family came to watch the first of the three final league matches in the 2014 Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup, many with their minds elsewhere and their thoughts wishing well the strongest of Brazilian professional players, a true gentleman and friend.

The last day of league games was to be a sober one, with play also being delayed by 20mins due to a tragic accident in Midhurst earlier that morning.  

With two 22 goal all pro teams on the pitch (6 out 8 of them English professionals) and a changed line up for UAE, minus Pablo MacDonough due to yellow cards, a recovered Lucas Monteverde, Cudmore, Benoit and Alec White, it was all set to be an interesting match.

By the end of chukka 1 the 3 goals scored belonged to Halcyon Gallery, with Ollie Cudmore on Mask putting the first up for UAE in the second and Monteverde bring the score to 3-2, Halcyon Gallery were still leading at the close of chukka two.  Harper took the score to 5 for the ‘artistic’ side and Cudmore on his grey scored when he was given penalty duties, making it 5-3 at half time.

Going into chukka 5 Mark Tomlinson, once again riding his best pony of the day – Milly, a dark bay English Thoroughbred who he rents from Jeremy Pigeon and who he’d also been on in the second, scored to bring his team to 9.  Despite 2 goals to UAE at the end of the of the 5^th they were not able to maintain the score, as going into the 6^th Beim extended Halcyon Gallery’s lead, with a final score of 12 – 8 to Halcyon Gallery and a firm place in the Quarters.  The match was summed up by Mark Tomlinson as ‘a good team performance, there were no patrons on the field so it was four guys against four guys.’

2pm Lucchese 4 v 8 Enigma, Lawns 1

Group A/B

It was a very different Black Bears who rode out onto the pitch at the start of their final league game in the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup to the one who had been at Guards a few weeks earlier.  This time they had their minds set on joining Dubai and going through to the quarters with four straight wins.  They might have had an injured Facundo Sola having to mentally do battle for his team from the side lines, but his substitute Juan Gris Zavaleta added his own style of strength to the team.  As John Paul Clarkin said, ‘The change in Black Bears from the Queen’s Cup to the Gold Cup is that there is an increased hunger to win and having Paco back in the saddle has helped with team moral’.

Against El Rosario, with three losses to their name, initially it might have seemed to have been two rather mismatched teams, but as was illustrated earlier in the week, anything can happen in High Goal.  If Black Bears were anticipating an easy ride they clearly weren’t going to find that against Penafiel, Ulloa, Elizalde and Archibald. 

From the moment that a stick connected with the ball both teams seemed on a mission to be the first to score, which Clarkin did with great style almost from the half way line, followed by O’Dwyer as the chukka ended, putting Black Bears in the lead 2-0 going into the second.  A missed penalty from El Rosario and Clarkin mounted on the magnificent Magpie, stealing the ball at every opportunity put an incredible third goal through, then, in spite of great defence from the team in white they couldn’t stop O’Dwyer’s 4^th.  There would have been even more on the board for the Bears at the end of the second, but a technical caused by Zavaleta meant his goal was disallowed, for El Rosario it was patron power from Penafiel right at the end that resulted in a 1 going up.  

Speed, accuracy and end to end play seemed to be the order of the day in the second half, as Penafiel once again scored for his team.  It remains to wonder what was said in the El Rosario tent at half time as another impressive Elizalde goal increased their score and Ulloa equalised at 5 all, then Elizalde did it again and put El Rosario into the lead for the first time in the game and they headed 6-5 up into the fifth.   This, despite John Paul Clarkin bringing the might of his 6 year old chestnut homebred, New Zealand gelding, Maserati into the game and adding some extra horsepower.

In a very exciting penultimate chukka O’Dwyer put the scores equal, but not for long as El Rosario were keeping the pressure on and Elizalde went all the way with a seventh goal, this one from the field.  Not to be beaten, Zavaleta once again brought the game to an equal score at 7 all.

It was quite ironic that Guy Schwarzenbach chose in the final chukka to improve still further his great play in the game and ride Fortuna, his 8 year old bay English thoroughbred mare from Pepe Riglos, (who post match he told me was his best pony of the day) because fortune did indeed eventually go Black Bears way.  For Clarkin, ‘the best moment of the game was taking the 30 in the start of the last to go one up, it hit the post and dribbled in.’ The black shirted team quickly went from 8-7 up to 9-7, but their white shirted opposition was not prepared to let them keep their lead and after several goals Elizalde equalised in the closing moment of the game, once again there was a level score, this time 9 all, next to the Jaeger-LeCoultre clock.   Clarkin clearly didn’t want to go into a seventh, putting a final goal through in the last few seconds and a 10 opposite El Rosario’s 9 on the board.  In the words of Guy Schwarzenbach ‘the best part of the match was walking off having won four out of four.’

3pm King Power v HB Polo, Lawns 1