It was a very foggy and dreary day on Sunday morning. As Santa Barbara weather can be, by midday, it was perfect fall polo weather for the final day of 2008 polo season. It was the 8-goal finals. It followed the consolation finals which saw Casa Blanca get a 1 up over Braveheart/Chadmar. It was a much better game than the finals. It was the absolute worst umpiring you may have ever seen. The game went on with a pretty good crowd for this time of the year and in the end it was Mansour winning over Klentner/Nicoma. It may have been a bad game anyway, but the officials on the field made it worse. It was not so much one-sided just bad. Not a good thing for a crowd to see. I find it hard to think they left with a good taste in their mouth about our sport.
It was the end of a very good season which was dominated by the high-goal season with the maximum number of teams. Eight teams came to Santa Barbara to play in the 20-Goal. One team was better than the others, but it was fun. The medium- and low-goal was not too hot this year. Five was a magic number and four was the norm, but all had fun I hope. In a short recap it was few winners
They were . . .
Long Beach won two or three12-goal Tournaments. Windsor Capital won one 12-goal and Audi won all the High-Goal. Chadmar/Braveheart won two 8-goal tournaments. Mansour won the last one.
There weren’t many champions, but the ones who did win, won a lot. I think Audi beat every team by at least 5 goals, when they wanted to. With the new handicaps in now they went up 1 goal. Figure that one out. Must be like someone said “its just California.” You cannot raise someone to 10-goals in California even though he may be one of the four best players in the World and he happens to be 10-goals everywhere else in the World. His name is Gonzalo Pieres. I thought they were bad when they raised Gonzalo Deltour only 1 goal, but to not raise Gonzalo Pieres is typical in Ca. They did lower teams that were beat in all the finals by at least 1 goal. I used to think Mark Ganzi was always just being a nice guy putting in teams, but now I think he is like Bill B., the Patriot’s coach. He is a genius and guess what? He can have a 6 in the Open. Someone is either on his side or blind. Ganzi can use GDT and probably win the Open. I am not talking about the PCO, I’m talking about the U.S. Open.
Down south it is the 9-goaler, who is10 in Argentina, winning their 2nd game in the Hurlingham Open. It was a very ugly game I hear. They beat Chapa II and need another win to make the 2nd finals of the big three. o La Dolfina with Adolfo Cambiaso headed to a showdown as La Aquada and Pilara are all without a LOSS on their side. Things are heating up down south. I also read where Pablo McDonough was injured again in a very bad play, no details as of yet. In the States it’s still Aiken, Dallas the Villages and Houston rollin’ on so there is Polo around. If your looking for a polo holiday, we have one for you. It’s pure pleasure and its just down the road or at least close by. It is paradise at Costa Careyes, Mexico where you can win your Lady’s heart and play as well in a setting beyond belief . The Mexican peso is 14 to 1 so have a party and call us or book it on www.careyes.com
See ya.