From Guards to Cirencester – This week in the English High Goal
By Victoria Elsbury-Legg
With the league games and knockout stages now all wrapped up at Guards Polo Club the quarter finalists and their opponents have been confirmed for this weekend’s play, with all four of the Pieres taking part alongside Cambiaso and Pablo MacDonough, also included in the line-ups are young English players Tom Brodie, Hugo Lewis and Jack Hyde. First up on Saturday 6th on Les Lions pitch at 11am King Power Foxes (Facundo Pieres, Gonzalito Pieres, Hugo Lewis and patron Top Srivaddhanaprabha) will face the dark green shirts of Nick Clarke’s Salkeld (Juan Griz Zavaleta, Joaquim Pittaluga, Luke Tomlinson and Nick Clarke). Following this first weekend quarter final, later in the day at 3pm at Guards Polo Club the defending champions for the last two seasons (albeit with a new line-up for 2015) – Lyndon Lea’s Zacara (Hilario Ulloa (further changing the line-up as a sub for an injured Juan Martin Nero), Rodrigo Andrade, Jack Hyde and Lyndon Lea) face the might of Adolfo Cambiaso heading up Dubai Polo Team alongside patron Rashid Albwardy, Tom Brodie and Diego Cavanagh.
By the end of play on Saturday two teams will be heading into Wednesday’s semi-finals and all eyes will be focused on Sunday’s games between UAE Polo Team (Jose Araya (subbing for Sheikha M Al Maktoum), Lucas Monteverde, Pablo MacDonough and Santiago Stirling) and King Power (Apichet Srivaddhanaprabha, Alejandro Muzzio, Marcos Di Paola and Guillermo Willington) at 11am. Then finally at 3pm Talandracas (Eduardo Carmignac, Polito Pieres, Sapo Caset and Zac Hagedoorn) meet RH Polo Team (Ben Soleimani, Francisco Elizalde, Nico Pieres and Santiago Von Wernich) on Smith’s Lawn in the last quarter final – and with the ring of the final bell the teams for Wednesday’s Cartier Queen’s Cup 2015 semis will have been decided.
Meanwhile as the lawns of Cowdray Park lie in wait for the thunder of the many high goal hooves as the start of the Jaeger LeCoultre Gold Cup draws near, at Cirencester Park the teams have been announced for The 2015 Bledisloe Warwickshire Cup. This week long 22 goal tournament which will culminate in the Finals on Sunday 21st June (semis on Thursday 18th June) will be played out between four teams:
HB Polo: Ludovic Pailloncy (1) Ignacio Toccalino (8) Cristian Laprida (8) and Sebastien Pailloncy (3)
La Indiana: Michael Bickford (1) James Beim (7) John Paul Clarkin (8) and James Harper (6)
Thai Polo: Harald Link (0) Matias Torres Zavaleta (7) Nick Roldan (8) and Tomas Garcia Del Rio (7)
Apes Hill: Ralf Richardson (1) Eduardo Novillo Astrada (9) Mark Tomlinson (6) and Tom Morley (6)