The Polo Report
By Steve Crowder
This is a game that if you base the results on the past, there is no future for F&M. Why? Look at history. Carlos Gracida has won the British Open, the U.S. Open and the Argentine Open several times in the same year. I think 7 Argentine Opens 10 British Opens, 8 U.S. Opens and a few Silver Cups and a couple of PCO’s. Memo has something like 16 U.S. opens and 1 Argentine Open and a British to go with it. That’s a lot of history and a lot of winning. Mariano is young and can add a few to it. On the other side, it is not so rosy. Dan has won a lot of tournaments and I am sure not a big Open besides the America Cup. Henry has at least one PCO to his title. I saw it and he was the reason why they won it. Lucas has been there several times, but never turned the deal in the big ones. Nachi is just getting there. Check back in 5 years. He will have plenty of silver. All this history is just that … HISTORY!
The Walkers at 4-goals combined on their horses with a running team could be worth 6 to 10 as a combo. All those titles mean nothing if they get on a roll. They do have home field advantage. The Walkers have played in Santa Barbara here all their lives. They are the sons of Ken Walker, probably the most disciplined team player I ever met or played with.
I have a story to tell all of you. Around 1985 or so, we had a good team. We just never finished the deal. We had a 4-goal kid with amazing talent, but he was not on the same page. The Patrons were upset. They said I could change to whomever I wanted. I said Ken Walker, who at that time was 54 years-old and they went ballistic. He was older than both Patrons, so we made a deal. If we lost no pay. If we won we would get double pay. It worked out well. We never lost another game because Ken knew how to play POLO. I predict a Walker wins tomorrow.
see ya