Piaget Polo team faces top-seeded sides in British Open
Luck of the draw has faced Piaget Polo’s new UK team with two of the toughest opponents in the field as the Swiss luxury watchmaker begins its campaign to win the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup in the British Open Championship at Cowdray Park Polo Club in West Sussex.
Piaget will play Talandracas, winners of the 2011 Queen’s Cup, in their first match on 25 June and will face Enigma, Queen’s Cup runners-up, on June 29. There are 18 teams competing for the Gold Cup, England’s top 22-goal tournament that ranks with the Argentine and US Open Championships.
Our first two games will be tough, against teams that have already proved themselves this season,” admitted Mariano Zimmerman, Piaget’s team manager in the UK. “But our ponies are in fine shape and our boys will be out to win.”
Piaget Polo first entered a team in English high-goal last year to celebrate the opening of the company’s brilliant new boutique in London’s New Bond Street. The 2010 team was led by 10-goaler Marcos Heguy, Piaget’s ambassador to the polo world. Due to injury Heguy has retired from high-goal competition, but remains with the team as a manager.
This year Piaget Polo’s UK team has a completely new line-up: Christian “Magoo” Laprida Jr, handicap 8; Ignacio Toccalino, 7 (8 in Argentina); Joaquin Pittaluga, 7; and Stefano Marsaglia, 0. This talented foursome will be fighting hard to reach the winners’ podium in the British Open that runs from 21 June to 17 July.
In the earlier high-goal Queen’s Cup tournament at Guards Polo Club, Piaget unluckily lost Laprida, their star player, to a pulled riding muscle. He was substituted with his brother Iñaki. The team lost all their league matches in May, falling to Enigma, who went on to be runners-up in the tournament, by 13 goals to 9. Piaget also lost to Richard Mille 12-9 and Emlor 11-8 and so, sadly, were eliminated from the competition.
But, with Laprida now fit and back in action, Piaget’s Gold Cup campaign should be quite a different story.
The UK high-goal season is the most cosmopolitan in the world, with top amateur and professional players coming from all over the globe to compete: England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brunei, and the USA.
There is a lot of sporting talent out there,” said Paul Redmayne, manager of the Piaget Boutique at 169 New Bond Street, “but the Piaget Polo team is up to the challenge. The team is a perfect compliment to our London boutique and I wish them luck in all their Gold Cup matches.”
Piaget has been involved with polo for more than 30 years and is now one of the world’s most prominent sponsors of the sport. The firm and its luxury watches has prestige exposure in all of the three largest polo-playing nations of the world: Argentina, the USA and the United Kingdom.
In Argentina, the world’s leading polo nation, Piaget ambassador Marcos Heguy is still one of only a handful of professional players to hold the sport’s maximum handicap of 10 goals. Marcos was captain of the Pilará-Piaget team in Argentina’s famous Triple Crown series, the world’s highest rated tournaments.
In the USA, the main championship ground at the country’s premier polo centre, International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPCPB), proudly bears the name the Piaget Field. The US Polo Association’s Piaget Gold Cup at IPCPB is one of America’s top tournaments and there has been a Piaget team competing at the club.