Matias Bullrich’s Polo Do are the 2006 Saratoga Barrantes Champions as they defeated Mount Brilliant from Lexington, KY in the finals today at 5:30pm. As Tony Coppola asked me to umpire the finals, I got a front row seat to an awesome display of Polo. Both teams played tough and were very well mounted. This was Matias’s second tournament….ever!
Willy Hartnet had an outstanding 100 yd lofting goal in the first, but Michel answered with his textbook pickup on the near-side and then drilled an off-side under the neck from about 60 yards. That pretty much set the stage for a whole slew of incredible plays.
Mount Brilliant was one of two of Greg Goodman’s entries with one of his two boys on each squad. The game was tied 1 apiece after one and continued to be neck and neck. Polo Do widened the gap early in the second half, but Mt. Brilliant showed some brilliance and closed the gap. Michel Dorignac answered with a little more of why he was chosen the game MVP. Polo legend Memo Gracida was coaching the Mt. Brilliant squad, but as they were waiting to hear the announcement of MVP, even he began to sing the start of the old mickey mouse club tune….m..i…c…indicating an obvious selection.
So Polo Do is now Polo Does.
Sunday 8/20
The “First Ever” Smithfield Hunt Country Open Champions would be Titan.
So go figure……Ten Mile Farm owner, Michael Levin seems to be on top of his game in the wrong valley. John Klopp knows every roll and pitch of his private field(not that there are many on his new field at Smithfield). So why was Michael the high scorer in the finals and overall high scorer of the tournament. Michael doesnt even like anything less than 12 goal. Well……maybe that might be changing a tad as even he recognized that the Mashomack band of amateurs has gotten a whole lot better in the past several years. That would be why Bruce Colley, Woody Keesee, and Adam Klopp played a Michael Levin, Parker Gentry Thorpe, and Tatin Zubiaurre very close and were only edged out 11-10. Adam Klopp is the young gun hitting the big ball these days as he scored 4 times while Woody and Bruce each added 3…talk about balance. So the Smithfield entry is denied bragging rights for the first ever SFO. How could that be? Did someone forget to talk to the umpire….before the game. Who was the umpire??? Maxi Crotto??/ Wait a minute…doesnt he………never mind.
So does this mean that the 2007 Smithfield Farms Open moves to Ten Mile River Farm. Or….maybe there are two opens next year…one at John’s…one at Michaels…and maybe even in case of a tie…the third one could be played off at Duke’s. We’ll have to bring it to the SFO committee for additional discussion………. Karen? Your call.
The party afterwards was pool, ping pong, great food, and just plain old great party. How else would a party overseen by Karen and John Klopp be??
Thank you so much Karen, John, Julio, and Sante….for a tournament with a whole lot of the kind of spirit our sport needs. And talk about the right kind of spirit…how about Sunday’s……..
Coaching Chukkers at 9:30am
We had three teams do battle as the students are finishing up with tactics and format and now in the process of putting their newly learned routines into game format. After an inch or plus of rain, the practice field was never looking better as our new recruits, balanced out by three guiding hands and a couple of our intermediate members had a lot of fun without any sun. We used a round-robin format, each team playing two chukkers. The first chukker found BV Red and BriarCliff White tied at 1 apiece.
Chukker two had Mashomack Blue win by a goal. Connor Pardel was the clutch player for Briarcliff White as a beautiful carry and score off of his mallet clinched the victory for White.
BV Red (Late entry by our returning vacationeer, Don Langlois)
David Merena (Recruited to fill in for the crazy Italian who played great on sat)
Guy Merison (We think Guy has now pretty much swallowed the hook)
Maxi Langlois (BV’s ringer) Don Langlois….a couple of hours rest after two weeks of travel and he is back in the saddle
Mashomack Blue
Abby(cant understand men..so thought she’d try polo) Vietor Oakleigh(most improved over the summer addict) Thorne Chris Green(a true polo addict..takes polo back up after being on foot for 20 years) Tatin Zubiaurre
Briarcliff White
Connor Pardel (Full field carry and score….ok….we got this one…next??)
Dennis Klejna (returning player after 4 year absence……..look for Dennis in 2007) Alan Topai (put him in the number three position and all of a sudden he’s hitting the ball) Felix Martinez.
Photo: Polo Do…Michel Dorignac, Matias Bullrich, Luis Galvan, and Aparicio. Second photo: Mimi Gracida presents MVP to Michel.