Jeff Hildebrand’s Tonkawa team will be joining three other teams in this year’s Chukker TV Challenge Cup at the Aspen Valley Polo Club this weekend. (Photo by Alex Pacheco)

Four teams will be appearing at the Aspen Valley Polo Club this weekend for the 2016 Chukker TV Challenge Cup. The Chukker TV Challenge Cup is the second in a series of nine summer polo tournaments at the club that will attract players from across the country and around the world.

Opening the competition will be Casablanca (Grant Ganzi, Tony Calle, Lucas Lalor and Juancito Bollini) and Travieso (Brian Boyd, Teo Calle, Sebastian Merlos and Alex Gooding) in an 11am Friday morning match on the Sopris Mountain Ranch field.

Travieso is becoming a regular at the Aspen Valley Polo Club, having won last July’s Craig Sakin Memorial Cup.

A 1pm contest will follow with Tonkawa (Jeff Hildebrand, Marc Ganzi, Julio Novillo Astrada and Jimmy Seward) facing Flexjet (Melissa Ganzi, Lauren Sherry, Carlitos Gracida and Justo Saavedra).

Jeff Hildebrand and his Tonkawa polo team (Jeff Hildebrand, Marc Ganzi, Julio Novillo Astrada and Jimmy Seward) will be making their first appearance of the year at the Aspen Valley Polo Club.   Tonkawa was a finalist in last August’s Mt. Sopris Cup where they lost to Bob Jornayvaz’s Valiente line-up.

Friday’s winners will meet in the final of the Chukker TV Challenge Cup on Sunday at 11am at the Aspen Valley Polo Club. The Subsidiary match is scheduled to follow at 1pm.

The polo competition continues a valley tradition that dates back to the late 1890s when The action on the polo fields kin Glenwood Stings attracted the highly-regarded American 10-goaler, Foxhall Keene and even managed a visit from then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid polo player himself.

The Aspen Valley Polo Club is located at 3275 County Road 100, Carbondale, CO. Everyone is welcome to watch polo in a relaxed atmosphere. Admission and parking are free. The club’s Polo Hotline is: 970-710-1663.