I was in Palm Beach over the weekend and this was a headline in the sports page about pro ball and aquiring players for the final run. Well this was the case on Saturday at the George Oliver Cup at IPC. The Tackeria team was addresed by a prominent figure in polo. He said to Shane Rice and Jason Crowder “This polo is a lot faster and better than you are used to playing, so try to keep up.” When it was said I thought to myself . . . “so they do think we are way out of it!” We must ride burros to polo! Joesph Stuart and Frederick Mannix, Jr. are playing there this season, so no one said anything to them about speed, so I thought whatever. Maybe we will see. After the first 3 minutes, I thought maybe he is right, but like lighting it changed and for the next 39 minutes the best two players were easily the boys from the West Coast. They got up to speed as they scored 10 of the 15 goals and out played the entire East coast squad. Shane Rice played his burros and Jason played borrowed and rented horses he had never played before. So the big city boys really do not have to worry. We have speed out West and maybe some talent too! All we need on the West Coast is some polo for the young players to play and some fields to play on.
In a conversation with Memo Gracida I asked him about the field which he played on a week ago at Eldorado (field 1) and its by far the best we have here in the desert. He said its not really a polo field in a nice sort of description. And it is our best. Memo actually did say the field at Dollingers was much better (a private club here in Thermal, CA near Eldorado) so it must not be the weather as the Dollinger field is only 6 miles away from Eldorado. Here on the West Coast we need to care about our polo. Its not like there is no money here in CA, but we refuse to do things like we could. No one wants to help and everyone here now complains about cost, yet they make grooms live in tackrooms, horses eat alfalfa only, they shoe every 6 weeks, etc. Does anyone really care? We have better land, more room to grow, cheaper land and we have what? Two of the major builders of Eldorado Fred Mannix, Jr. and Kelly Beal left and were in the finals of the 22-goal in Florida, what does that tell us about it all starts at home?
see ya