El Remanso edges out Loro Piana in one of best Queen’s Cup games
By Herbert Spencer
The Hanburys’ El Remanso beat Alfio Marchini’s Loro Piana 15-14 in the last minute of their Queen’s Cup match Saturday (29 May).
The hard-fought match on the Duke’s Ground at Guards Polo Club was seen by many as perhaps the best game of the whole tournament thus far, fast and open with the two closely-matched teams trading points throughout. “This was polo at its very best,†commented HPA chief executive David Woodd.
El Remanso, the team fielded by non-playing patron Christopher Hanbury for his sons Charlie and George, kept the edge through most of the encounter thanks to a brilliant performance by their Uruguayan 9-goaler David “Pelon†Sterling who was up against Loro Piana’s 10-goaler Juan Martin Nero. In the end, however, the two teams scored equally from the field.
The Hanbury squad, rated at 21 goals against Loro Piana’s 22, started with a point on the scoreboard and kept the lead through most of the first three chukkas until Nero equalised just on the half-time bell.
El Remanso recovered the lead and kept it, but only barely, through the next two periods. In the sixth it was anybody’s game, with the lead changing several times. It was El Remanso’s Jaime Huidobro who scored the winner with a 60-yard penalty conversion less than a minute before the final bell.