High Goal, it’s a brother thing
By Victoria Elsbury-Legg
It seems it really is all in the genes when it comes to High Goal Polo and it is not the white variety we are talking about. A quick glance down the list of the teams who have recently qualified for the Penalty Shootout, Sub Final or Quarter Final stages of the 2014 Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup and there are a lot of similarities between surnames.
Three Pieres, Gonzalo (King Power) Facundo (Zacara) and Nico (Lucchese) and that’s without including their cousin Polito (Talandracas) just knocked out in penalties. Representing England are the Tomlinsons, Luke with Nico Pieres in Lucchese and Mark with his fellow all England Pros who form Halcyon Gallery.
George Hanbury makes up another quarter of Halcyon Gallery (currently preparing for their Sunday lunch date with Zacara), then of course there is his brother Charlie of El Remanso who narrowly missed qualification for the Quarters on penalties, but has made it to the Subsidiary Finals. His team mate Pelon Stirling came up against his brother Santiago and the rest of Talandracas in the final league game and once again in penalties, but only one of the Stirling brothers have qualified to the next stage. Making up another of the fourteen teams who made it through to the Penalty Shootout and then the Subsidiary Finals are the Pailloncy brothers (Ludovic and Sebastien) one half of team HB Polo.
Talent, skill, and dedication to the sport, alongside a lot of training make these sportsmen such great players, but natural talent and ‘bloodline’ must also play a large part. For if you look at the tournament team lists, and names around the bases of the Gold and Queen’s Cup from previous years you will certainly also see a number of Astradas, MacDonoughs,Gracidas, Donosos, Hipwoods and Heguys engraved in the silver plaques and bands.