The Polo Report by Steve Crowder – At 11 AM on Sunday, Aug. 20th 2006 its about to be a brand new tournament. This is the way it should be to the last moment as there are two teams who have gone one up and one down.
At 11 am its Duende, the defending Champs, vs. Windsor Capital, the defending losers of 2005. It should be a walkover for Duende as Windsor Capital has not won a kleenex this Summer, but they did win on Friday. Maybe the thought of a young, hustling kid named Juan Jo (Juan Jose Gonzalez) is what they needed. Juan Jo did very well (substituting for Pat Nesbitt of Windsor Capital) and maybe the others thought it could work. Duende on the other hand has the two highest-rated players here at the PCO and they are good. Juan Jo is slow sometimes, but he is coming along and very fast when he does make it happen. If Duende loses to Windsor Cap there will be 2 ties.
In Game #2 Mansour vs. Jimmy Choo (who are in the semis and galloping). With their front end Jimmy Choo could beat Mansour. If you add their backend it could be either a slaughter or a practice game, if they are resting their horses. Nobody knows. If Mansour wins it will be 3 teams tied.
At 3 pm its Grant’s Farm/Klentner vs. Audi who are mostly in, but if Grant’s Farm/Klentner beats them there is a 5-way tie for positions 2, 3 and 4 of the semis. If this happens it turns into paperwork and its Jimmy Choo in for sure and Antelope out for sure. It will come down to net goals between teams who are tied. So every game is a very important. If “The Stick” (Nick Roldan) and Ruki Baileau come to the plate, it will be a 4- way race to the semis. Sunday, either way, will be a great day for Polo. There will be speed and hunger at 11AM and two of the best players in the World will be playing. At 1 PM there is the next Cambiaso teammate playing (and in my opinion the best player here ) If he does not win the Skene award it had better be Santi Torres or I else I would suspect someone is cheating. I think Nick Roldan is amazing. In one year he went from a good player to AC power . We have some outstanding young players here as well including: Juan Jose Gonzalez, Santi Torres, Patrick Uretz, Doug Blumenthal, Carlos Galindo, Jr. These Young Guns are all doing well. I think they would do well on either coast and they are all 16 years old or less. So please keep in mind that Pee Wee polo programs do work and they do produce strong American polo players. They had a big one today at Meekers Field (next to Santa Barbara Polo Club). The results will be in soon. Come and see those Ponies run!