Arturo “Tuti” Gutierrez
196? – 2010
Virtual Memorial
Tuti with a dog named Murphy.
August 11th, 2010 – It is with a heavy heart that I write this Virtual Memorial. Arturo “Tuti” Gutierrez passed away suddenly today from liver failure. Tuti has been a part of the desert polo community for many years. He was born in Mexico, but he spent a majority of his years here in the United States working in polo. Tuti was a professional polo player, a groom and a very good friend to many people.
Tuti was 3-goals when I first met him in 1999. He was always playing in the early season tournaments including the Road Runner and the Go Honey. For many years he worked for Susan Stovall as her groom and he has worked and played at many clubs up and down the coast of California. He always came back to Eldorado for the winter and over the past few years he spent his summers at Empire Polo Club. There is a lot more to be told about his history in polo, but I will have to rely on his friends to help fill in the details of Tuti’s polo career.
Horseplay won the consolation match. From left to right: Trudy Rumbaugh, Arturo Gutierrez, Cheryl clark and Dan Healy. Go Honey 11-09-2000,
What I remember most about Tuti is his warm smile and his gentle way with horses. He was a sensitive man who led a simple life. He liked his freedom and his independence. Tuti had a stubborn streak a mile long, but he also had a big heart.
Tuti on a horse named Tiptop.
Tuti was a good friend of mine. I will miss the conversations we used to have at the barn and along the sidelines. He was always looking at life from a different perspective. We would take about relationships, polo, his family in Mexico and his life before he came to the United States. I have bits and pieces of who Tuti was and what his life was like, but I don’t have a complete picture to share with you. Maybe his friends can share a few stories about Tuti with us. It would be nice to learn more about Tuti before we send him on his way to the grass fields in heaven where he will meet up with his old friends Artie Cameron, Sam Thornton and Sue Sally Hale.
Goodbye Tuti. You will be in my thoughts and in my prayers for many years to come.
Lynn Bremner
PoloZONE.com
NOTE: Donations are being collected to cover the cremation costs for Tuti. Please send checks to Diane Hensley at 79440 Canterbury, La Quinta, CA 92253. She put up the money to cover these costs and we are requesting donations to help cover those costs. Thank you!
Here are a few photos I found in my old photo archives. If anyone else has photos please email them to me and I can add them to this page. Please feel free to comment at the bottom of this article with your stories about Tuti. Or email them to me and I can include them for you. Email lynn@polozone.com.
Mehrdad called him “Ventura” – Tuti loved it. He said its what his Grandmother would call him.
Wishing you peace in your next adventure Ventura.
Miss you Tuti. You always had a smile. You always said “it will be OK, Gill”. Good travel with old friends.
Tuti gave me my send off when I left California bound for Idaho for a summer. I gave him my bike and a story I had written in bad spanish about him. To me, he was cruelly juxtaposed in the polo community, an amazing player, friend, loyal human, who crawled off to sleep in a tack room while the rest went to their comfy homes. I was struck at how powerful his character was, how much could have been his, but, he was bound up by his pride and sense of country too. He was such a complex man, so much character, so much to give but he was entrenched in a world with so much money and not enough to save him from his own demons. He took me to Santa Barbara before I left and he introduced me around. We walked on the boardwalk and he ran inside a store and bought this little blue boat, something akin to what the marionette mariachi would be to the American tourist in Mexico. On the beach, he found a rock chiseled out to look like the face of a Mayan warrior and told me to put it in that boat and keep it with me to remember him. When I came back from Idaho, we were to sail away somewhere. I knew he could never go far from the polo grounds. I knew the fear that kept him there. But 10 years later, two kids and a husband now, still in Idaho, that boat, that rock and a picture I took of him that day, are in the window of my passat. And I have hoped he found the strength to take that boat ride with someone else. Hopefully, he’s sailing now.
Tuti was my cousin, although it had been many years since I last saw him as children we were close. My brother Bobby who is now deceased and him were like brothers and I pray they find each other. He was a wonderful boy and I hope he was happy. I only found out recently he was in Calif. and not in Mexico. His mother and my mother are sisters.
When his mother went to retrieve his ashes they were unable to find his trophies that he had proudly showed here the last time she visited, does anyone know what happened to them? Can anyone tell me what happened to him, was he sick for a long time, did he die alone, did he have someone that took care of him.
Please contact me if you know anything I can tell his mother to comfort her, she had no idea he was so sick.
Thank-you,
Olga
Hi Olga, His mother was here in Indio, CA with some other cousins and relatives. They met with some of Turi’s closest friends. I also met her and gave her some photos of Turi. Turi was not alone when he passed, he was with his closest friends. They took good care him.
Lynn
Thank-you so much for your reply.