By Alex Webbe
In one of the season’s most surprising moves of the polo season, victor Vargas, Venezuelan businessman and patron of the Lechuza Caracas polo has released top international players Sebastian and Pite Merlos.
The Merlos brothers are two of the top players in the world with Pite holding a 9-goal handicap and Sebastian rated at the ultimate 10-goals. Members of the 2007 British Open Championship Lechuza Caracas team, controversy is nothing new to the talented Merlos brothers.
Sebastian has been sanctioned twice by the Argentine Polo Association, being barred from the balance of the high-goal season in Argentina in 2006 in the second of the association’s triple crown and again in 2007 in his first game back.
It appears that it wasn’t merely the failure of the Lechuza team to win, having lost in the finals of its own Lechuza Caracas Cup, falling in overtime in the semifinals of the C. V. Whitney Cup and losing in the opening round of the 2008 USPA Piaget Gold Cup, it was the on field behavior.
Shouts and screams accented its game with Bendabout last week as passes fell short or balls were missed. The first verbal assaults fell on Lechuza’s 6-goal Back, Nico Espain. When Vargas attempted to quell the tempers of the Merlos boys, he became the target. By the end of the game, their fate was sealed.
For the balance of the Gold Cup tournament it is thought that Sapo Caset (8) and Guille Aguero (7) will replace the high-goal duo. The plans for the Lechuza US Open team remain unclear.
When asked for a comment from Victor Vargas, Lechuza Caracas Polo Manager, Esteban Scott declined to comment, saying that Mr. Vargas was not ready to make a statement at this time.
Lechuza is scheduled to take to the fields in Gold Cup play on Tuesday at 11 am against Las Monjitas with the certainty of the lineup is still in question.