The way it was in my mind and it is a simple mind I do say. The first tournament was normal, well played and the horses were all getting ready. So they were very close and fun games. Nobody is killing to win yet, but the Snowman (Adam Snow) was the player of the Tournament as he got a maximum effort from his team and won it all stopping Michael Rothbard’s Los Toros in the Finals. It was good to have two rookie patrons there with Michael Rothbard in the finals and Ben Soleimani as well with Mansour . It was off to the Americas Cup next and there were a few silly mistakes as always when you have an odd number of teams. Its best not to have an odd number, but its the way it usually is. If your playing within your bracket and its 3 teams or five its got to be the winner takes the bye or it could be over right then. That means last game is no game, but that’s the way it was. It was also the forming of a future star as young. and I mean young as he is about 13 years old, Santiago Torres hit the big time as he substituted for Geoff Palmer. He became a big gun ASAP and with the help of Palmer’s horses flew to the winners circle with Antelope. I also thought it was a magnificent gesture by Geoff to let Santi (Santiago) play the finals. I am sure Geoff Palmer could have played, but that’s the way he is. So Mansour won the Skene Tournament and Antelope the America’s Cup. Next we were off to the PCO (Pacific Coast Open). A new team Jimmy Choo emerged with patron Lyndon Lee leading the team. They got tough from the first minute of the first game they played and started beating teams up. From this came another young player in the form of Nick Roldan, who often looked like Adolfo Cambiaso himself a few years ago. Nick destroyed every team in his way including the winners of the PCO Duende. They were close to a loss once with Grant’s Farm, but not in any other games. It was Jimmy Choo alone on top and Antelope alone on the bottom. The rest were pretty even. We had a great tournament on the final day after 21 games. Every game counted, which never happens. The last goal in the last game of the overtime period was a big one. It was an even bigger one for the tournament committee. who failed the conversion test as they announced the wrong teams for the semis due to haste and politics. This became a horrible issue which caused no polo to happen on Saturday because one team was slighted, 3 teams lost 2 games they had expected to play so the 5th and 6th were never decided. You might say who cares, but I am sure a couple of Patrons would have loved to get a couple of more games in, but they did not. So on to the semis and it was Grant’s Farm/Klentner in the 2nd spot playing the 3rd place team Duende. It was a very close and often dirty game with mallets striking players often and hard. It was won by Duende. In the other semi game it was Jimmy Choo vs. 4th place Windsor Capital, who had played horrendously throughout the tournament until the last 3 games. It was, however, enough to land them in the semis. It was as last year with Jimmy Choo looking ahead to the finals, getting in trouble and they did. It was another young gun Juan Jose Gonzalez, all of 18 years old , showing his skills and helping get Windsor to the finals vs. Duende for 2nd year in a row . Jimmy Choo played the consolation vs. Grants/Klentner and here is where I feel we did our worst as a club. We have National TV filming the game and we want polo to show well to the general public on live TV. The first problem was the polo field was to be an official width, which is not normally done and it was not done for the Finals as it stayed the same despite voting by teams before the tournament. The second problem was the 3rd place game was to be played on the field before the finals. The field was not in that good of shape anyway and it was a wreck for the Finals and it was visible by all on TV. The Finals should have been played first and the consolation match second as they do in England. People come to see the finals and its always devalued because of the field and that’s not right. The winners should be rewarded with the best conditions possible I think. They had a great crowd and a well organized event, so have the best. They might want to reorganize the trophy presentation that was a bit odd to say the least. There was a presentation on each side of the field. Anyway, you may have seen the Pacific Coast Open Final on ESPN 2. So you probably saw the results for yourself. Just my opinion on how things went down this past Summer at Santa Barbara Polo Club. –See ya. Steve Crowder
