Photo courtesy of Jim Wright
Last Monday we got a new group of made/green horses from Pepe Heguy. We spent Monday and Tuesday bringing in the new group and getting them ready to play. Wednesday morning we had some green horse chukkars at Gaston Laulhe’s farm. That afternoon we were at the club for a mixed practice with Pancho Bensadon and his son. We played seven fast, open chukkars of classic polo. The horses stayed overnight at the club and we played again Thursday morning. On Friday we gave the made horses a rest and worked on the younger prospects.
Chapalefu was packed on the weekend with members eager to play. All of the stabling was full and we were blessed with a fun fast practice against Marcos Heguy. He provided lots of advice and helped us with our game immensely. We played on field one, which had previously been untouched, and found that we could play fast polo without having trouble hitting the ball.
After Saturday practice, the whole town seemed to hurry to clean up and rush over to the local soccer club. The annual festival of domadores was taking place and was the buzz of the town. They had gauchos of all ages participating in the rodeo. There were merchants selling gaucho apparel, tack, mate gourds, and delicious food. We also were able to experience some fine argentine asado!
To wrap up our amazing weekend, we played an early Sunday practice and were fortunate enough to enjoy some cool weather. All of the horses made it safely back home and we have begun organizing the strings for the upcoming tournament. We had an amazing week here in La Pampa and we are looking forward to trying our luck in the big Chapalefu tournament that will start on the first weekend of February.
