White Birch’s Hilario Ulloa named MVP; his horse, Risueña, named Best Playing Pony in tournament final
The United States Polo Association® (USPA) today announced that White Birch won the 2015 Monty Waterbury Cup, defeating Tupungato in Wednesday’s thrilling final at the Greenwich Polo Club.
To get to the final, White Birch defeated Airstream, creating a three-way tie for second place among Airstream, Tupungato and Shreve, Crump & Low, who then competed in a three-way penalty shoot-out to determine which team would face White Birch in the championship game, and which teams would vie for third and fourth place. Tupungato won the shootout.
White Birch, (Santino Magrini, Hilario Ulloa, Mariano Aguerre, and Peter Brant) defeated Tupungato (Luis Rinaldini, Nick Manifold, Joao Paulo Ganon, and Tommy Biddle) 18-13 in the final to capture its sixth Monty Waterbury Cup. White Birch’s Hilario Ulloa was named match MVP and his horse, Risueña, was name Best Playing Pony. In the third place game, Shreve, Crump & Low (Chris Brandt/Bash Kazi, Joaquin Panelo, Matias Magrini, Kris Kampsen) defeated Airstream, (Peter Orthwein, Guillermo Aguero, Michel Dorignac, Mariano Gonzalez) 15-9. Shreve, Crump & Low’s Joaquin Panelo was named match MVP, and Matias Magrini’s Dolfina Marques was named Best Playing Pony.
The tournament is named in honor of 10 goal polo immortal James “Monty” Waterbury, who as a member of The Wanderers polo team won polo’s very first U.S. Open Championship in 1904. He is also remembered as a member of the U.S. team known as the “Big Four” that won five Westchester Cups against Great Britain. In 1922, two years after his untimely death, his friends and teammates played for the first Monty Waterbury Cup.
Greenwich Polo Club’s next USPA-sanctioned tournaments are the Butler Handicap—Sunday July 12, 2015, and the East Coast Open August 23 through September 6.