Ellerston beats El Rosario; Ayala downs
Royal Salute and UAE slips past Dos Lunas
By
Alex Webbe
Ellerston, Ayala and UAE all registered wins on the second
day of competition in the 2013 Hublot Gold Cup at the Santa Maria Polo Club at
Sotogrande, Spain Tuesday afternoon.
Ellerston (Johnny Williams, Ali Patterson, Gonzalo Pieres
and Facundo Pieres) got the day started with a resounding 11-6 win over El
Rosario (Alejandro Penafiel, Valerio Zubiaurre, Milo Fernandez and Salvador
Ulloa).
The last time the two teams met El Rosario lost to Ellerston
by a single goal, such was not the case today.
The brother combination of Facundo and Gonzalito Pieres controlled the
game from start to finish, riding off the field at the end of the sixth chukker
with a11-6 win.
AYALA 16, ROYAL
SALUTE 14
Later in the day, Ayala (Inigo
Zobel, Guillermo Willington, Pablo MacDonough and Juan Jauretche) won a
high-scoring 16-14 slugfest with Royal Salute Whiskey (Petrus Fernandini,
Alejandro Muzzio, Jaime Huidobro and Malcolm Borwick), with Guillermo
Willington and Pablo MacDonough setting the pace in the team’s opening Gold Cup
match.
The meeting between Ayala and
Royal Salute was the first of the year for the two teams.
UAE POLO 12, DOS
LUNAS 11
UAE (HH Sheikha Maitha Al Maktoum, Jack Richardson, Lucas
Monteverde and Sebastian Merlos) relied
on well-coordinated got off on the right hoof in their Gold Cup debut with a
hard-fought 12-11 win over Dos Lunas (A Sainzde Vicuna, Jason Warren, Diego
Cavanagh and Tomas Garcia Del Rio).
In their last meeting in Silver Cup play UAE sailed past Dos
Lunas 16-10, but this afternoon’s game wasn’t quite as easy with Diego Cavanagh
and Tomas Garcia Del Rio putting on the pressure.
In the end it was the teamwork of Lucas Monteverde and
Sebastian Merlos at the back end of the UAE lineup that proved to be the
difference in the 12-11 victory.
Hublot Gold Cup play continues on Thursday, August 22 with
Halcyon Gallery (0-1) meeting HB Polo (1-0) followed by a contest between Dubai
(1-0) and Scapa (0-1).