The 117th Argentine Open of Polo, the absolute ultimate competition in the sport of polo.  The best fields, the best players and without a doubt the greatest polo ponies in the world.  For this I made the 10, 947 kilometre (6819 mile) pilgrimage from Calgary through Houston and on to Buenos Aires.  I arrived with a week to spare before the big event and spent much of it settling into the South American way of life in this vibrant city.  As the weekend approached my anticipation grew, not only for the tournament but for the participation in it of my very good friend Pablo Pieres h. (Polito).  To give you a little history, Polito and I first became friends when he came to work with me at the Calgary Polo Club in Canada, he was my groom.  Polito also came with me to the Eldorado Polo Club in California for a season, he was 14 and rated one goals at the time. Now here he was, one of the most promising up and coming polo players in the professional ranks, currently rated 7 goals and fresh off of qualifying for the Argentine Open with the polo team Sao Jose.

Finally Saturday arrived, and with it the heat, the sun was blazing and the temperatures climbed to the 30’s C (high 80’s F).  The day was perfect as the heat at the stadium was cut by a gentle breeze coming off of the water, there couldn’t possibly be a better place on earth at this moment to watch a polo match.  The first match of the tournament?  Sao Jose and Polito against La Dolfina and inarguably the best polo player on the planet, Adolfo Cambiaso.  The 30 goal qualifying team was going to be up against it with the 39 goal defending champions to be sure.

After greeting Polito and wishing him luck, I took my seat in the stands of field 2 with the rest of the family and fans and waited, what was to come?  Would they be destroyed by the champions?  This was going to be interesting, the young and hungry Sao Jose team and the newly configured La Dolfina, fresh off of a heavy defeat at the hands of Ellerstina in the 2nd leg of the Argentine Triple Crown, The Hurlingham Open.  From the opening bowl-in Sao Jose was aggressive, the game was flowing, shockingly they took a 3-1 lead to finish the first chukka!  The crowd watched intently, strangely quiet at first, almost nervously watching the two teams, this was incredible.  La Dolfina came out determined in the second chukka, Cambiaso began  to assert himself and his team fought it’s way back to a 4-4 tie to close out the period.  Converted penalties were few and far between, narrow misses and balls blasted mid-air back from whence they came, both teams digging in, halftime arrived with an 7-7 tie…this crowd was no longer quiet…could the underdogs actually pull this out?  The teams took the field for the 5th chukka after halftime and the game picked up where it left off…flying…8-8 at the end. This was incredible, Sao Jose was functioning as a team better than the defending champions, could they close this out? In the 6th, 7th and 8th chukkas Cambiaso had an answer to that question…no.  What a display of horsepower and individual skill, awesome, he took the game completely over. Weaving his way through both teams, it was like the ball was attached to his mallet by a string, when finally Sao Jose would attack with enough defenders to separate Cambiaso from the ball there was nobody else to defend the other members of La Dolfina.  How can one man complicate so much for another team? Incredible to behold.  La Dolfina took the lead in the 6th and never relinquished it, Sao Jose was forced to push harder and paid the price by surrendering opportunities and penalties to La Dolfina…the game ends 18-12 in favour of the defending champions La Dolfina but the youthful Sao Jose left the field with much to feel good about. I made my way over to the Sao Jose team tent and made my congratulations to Polito for a game well played and started over to the spectacular stadium surrounding field 1.

The second game of polo on that beautiful Saturday was a much anticipated affair, 33 goal Pilara vs 35 goal Chapa Uno.  These two evenly matched teams were expected to have a hard fought battle down to the final whistle…it was anything but.  Pilara exploded from the opening bowl-in and never looked back. That opening bowl-in was as close as the game ever was, Augustin and Sebastien Merlos were sublime, Santiago Chavanne was solid and Tomas Garcia del Rio (in for the injured Marcos Heguy) was a rock as the number 4.  Pilara was working like a well oiled machine, everything worked, even when the team seemed to make a mistake the play worked in their favour. The half time score was 11-3 in favour of Pilara. Chapa Uno showed their resolve and continued to scrap it out but alas the closest they ever got after the halftime break was a 6 goal difference.  Pilara closed out the match by putting their foot on the throat of Chapa Uno with 3 goals in the first 3 minutes of the final chukka. The final score was decisive 19-9 for Pilara, a crushing defeat for Chapa Uno, a team which had shown such promise during the first two legs of the Argentine Triple Crown, they will have to try and regroup before play resumes next weekend.

After the match is a social affair under the stadium’s grandstands.  Spectators and players alike milling about together amongst the team sponsored booths, watching interviews at the ESPN studio, espressos in the Nespresso booth, champagne at Chandon bar and beers at Stella bar and food from multiple cafes…an amazing scene…such accessibility to the best polo players in the world both of the past and the present.

Sunday came early and despite the 2 o’clock start it was not an easy task to arrive on time (did I mention the new Chapa Bar in the barrio of Recoleta?). However, arrive on time I did indeed, I was not going to miss a second of the action between fellow Canadian Fred Mannix’s 34 goal team Alegria vs Ellerstina’s perfect 40 goals!  This match started off at an absolute blistering pace, end to end action. I am sure I have never watched a match in such awe of the horsepower, at one point the crowd gasped as one at the high speed turn of Pablo Mac Donough on a small, gorgeous dapple gray…jaw dropping.  The game play was actually quite even to begin the game, the best action seen so far in the tournament, balls backed from the goal mouth, penalties rejected mid-air, long bombs down the field and dazzling stick handling. Did I mention the horses? What a polo match.  Despite the even game play Ellerstina just kept making all the plays that mattered, both offensively and defensively, they just kept taking the match further out of the reach of Alegria. Finally, midway through the 4th chukka Francisco Bensadon put Alegria on the board, the chukka ended at 8-1.  It was at this point I noticed that Pablo Mac Donough was wearing a facemask on his helmet, as that is unusual to see in this tournament I asked about it…apparently he had broken some of the bones around his eye in the Ellerstina Gold Cup a week to 10 days previous and had surgery to repair himself, it did not seem to effect his game what-so-ever.  The 6th chukka came with another jaw dropping equine moment as Facundo Pieres played his mare Claret, it was as if he was playing alone on the field, every play was his…every play…shocking skill displayed by both Facundo and Claret…they were everywhere.  With the game out of reach the 8th chukka was Fred Mannix’s, he began with a converted penalty and proceeded to make play after play, collecting two more goals from the field, perhaps easing the pain somewhat as the game ended 15-6 in favour of Ellerstina.

The final match of the weekend, back to field 1…34 goal Chapa II vs 37 goal La Aguada.  La Aguada, made up of four of the Novillo Astrada brothers, started quickly with 2 goals and then play was stopped as Alberto Heguy took a fall which required an on field visit from the ambulance, he was seen to and continued on.  The opening chukka did not go well for Chapa II as it closes 5-0 in favour of La Aguada, the brothers teamwork is something to behold, they were controlling the match.  The second chukka began with Ignacio Heguy putting Chapa II on the board and then the air was sucked out of the stadium…play called…injured horse.  The place went completely quiet, all that could be heard were the vendors in the stands but not a person was paying attention to them…all eyes and thoughts were on Ignacio Heguy’s horse.  He stood, holding his head in his hands at one point as he waited with his teammate for the equine ambulance to come onto the field.  The crowd applauded as the ambulance made it’s way off of the field and again for Ignacio when he returned to the field on another horse.  The energy seemed to be gone from both the stadium and the game for some time but slowly returned to it’s previous pace, the La Aguada team continued to control the match and at halftime led by a score of 9-4.  This Chapa II team is a tough and determined one and they continued to work hard but they just could not crack this La Aguada squad, they at times seemed badly out-horsed.  La Aguada came out for the 2nd half as they did the first, on fire, and the 5th chukka ended with a 14-5 lead for the brothers.  Not surprisingly frustrations seemed to boil over for the Chapa II squad and I believe the umpire yellow carded the lot of them at once, he seemed to let them all have a good look at that yellow card in the 8th chukka.  The match ended 20-10 for La Aguada.

The tournament continues next weekend with Sao Jose vs Pilara; La Dolfina vs Chapa Uno; Alegria vs La Aguada; Ellerstina vs Chapa II … check back in here for results, I’ll be blogging throughout the entire tournament.

Chau for now!

Dylan Foster