Parade Float from the 2008 Summer Solstice. Photo by Robert BernsteinSanta Barbara is the place to be this weekend whether you are playing polo or not. The sun worshipers come out of the closet this time of year to celebrate summer solstice, and boy do they know how to celebrate! The parade starts at 12:00 in downtown Santa Barbara so bring your beach chair and watch the show. This year’s theme is “Splash” so be prepared to get wet!
All that parade watching is sure to stir up your appetite, so stop by the SB Polo Club Saturday evening and participate in our burger building party, catered by Tinker’s. The fun starts at 6:00.
This weekend is also the start of the USPA Intra-Circuit Tournament, the final tournament in our Spring 8-12 goal season. So far Piocho won the Lisle Nixon, La Karina won the Pope, and last weekend Windsor won the Vic Graber. Long Beach is hoping this tournament will put them on top. The club will be busy this Sunday as we host our annual Father’s Day Brunch catered by Pampered Palate. Even though we have only had 4 teams this season, we have had incredible tournouts for the Sunday games. The players really get pumped to win and our sponsors are loving all the exposure they are getting.
In case you haven’t heard about all the new things that are happening at the SB Polo Club this year, I’ll recap a bit for you. This year we have 3 absolutely gorgous field-side cabanas that can be rented either for the whole season or by the week. There are several different packages available including bottle service or a private cocktail waitress. We also have wine tastings every week (this week is Kenneth Crawford Winery). We also have a new sponsor this year: Veuve Clicquot is sponsoring our Robert Skene 20 Goal Tournament and we are thrilled to have them. Our friends at Lucchese have returned this year to sponsor the USPA America’s Cup and of course we can’t forget our title sponsor, Bombardier, who is again sponsoring the Pacific Coast Open.
This summer the club is sure to be busy with 8 High Goal teams coming for July and August. We have two new teams this year: Patagones with patron Gonzalo Avendano and Valiente with patron Bob Jornayvaz. Carlos Avendano, Brandon Phillips and Carlos Gracida round out the team for Patagones. Carlucho Arellano, Nachi Astrada, and Santiago Botaro will be playing for Valiente. We are happy to have Ben Soleimani’s team Mansour return after not playing during the 2008 season. He is playing with Martin Zeggers, Adam Snow and Santiago Trotz. John Muse is playing his second season in Santa Barbara and will be bringing Mike Azzaro, Julio Gracida and Andres Weisz. Last year’s runner-up, Grants Farm, is returning with 4 goal patron Andy Busch. Andy is bringing a strong team with him including Jeff Hall and Sugar Erskine, who played for the winning Audi team last year. Scott Wood is recovering from a polo injury but is still putting in a team this season. He will be playing with Paco DeNarvaez, Gonzalo Deltour and Jeff Blake. Melissa Ganzi is representing Audi this year and will bring her pros Juan Bollini, Kris Kampsen and Luis Escobar. Zacara is the 8th team and Lyndon Lea is coming ready to win. He has hired Nico Pieres and Miguel Novillo-Astrada to play with him for the summer. The polo will be impressive this year so make sure you come out to watch. The finals of the Bombardier Pacific Coast Open will be held on Sunday, September 6th. Mark your Calendars! If you cannot be there I will be twittering the scores after every chukker on the sbprc twitter account.
TJ Barrack, Peter Ganibi and Matt LadinAnd now I will leave you with a little eye candy: some photos from our Men of Polo photoshoot. The club will be holding 2 additional shoots during the 20 goal season.
Fernando Asenjo and Santiago Wulff of La Karina