Team USPA sends 3 American players to Argentina to train for the winter season
The highlight of our time here was undoubtedly The Copa Garzaron. This is a 12 goal tournament played at Chapaleufú from February 21 through February 24. The tournament featured two brackets of three teams playing in a cross bracket format, the best team from each bracket advanced to the final.
In game one of the tournament we faced what we thought was the best team from the other bracket. Led by a talented 5 goaler Ivan lagriuet and veteran Tuky Caivano, rounded out by two hard charging forwards our opposition had the speed, skill and talent to promise a difficult game.
We started out playing well and were in control early, winning the first half by two and doing so pretty easily. In the second half the game changed drastically in favor of our opponents. They started the fourth chukker playing with a lot more energy and desire than we had.
We were never able to come out of the daze we entered the fourth chukker, and the game was suddenly over in the fifth. After their conversion of a penalty 4, we took the ball from a throw in and carried it to within 10 yards of our goal where they stole it and took it the length of the field and scored. After giving up another goal from the throw-in we were completely deflated. We ended the chukker down by three, all wondering what had happened.
The game essentially ended there in the fifth. We fought hard in the sixth but in vain. What had happened to us? We were all so confident and prepared, or so we thought. Had we really just spent a month practicing only to get worse?
Of course that was not the case. We had improved. We had been working on so many things day in and day out, but this was our first game at tournament speed in some time. We thought we could go in there and play like country gentlemen and win nicely, but that is not the way this type of polo has to be played.
In hindsight it is a good thing that we lost our first game. Winning the way we had played would have left us learning nothing. Instead we got what was needed, a nice reality check. Our big lesson was that this was not practice anymore. We couldn’t baby the horses and we all had to be willing to fight every minute of every chukker.