Diego Cavanagh returns and Dubai wins their first British Open match of the year in a 17-5 romp.
Apes Hill (Ralph Richardson, Mark Tomlinson, Eduardo Novillo Astrada and Tom Morley) was still floating on air after winning last week’s Warwickshire Cup at the Cirencester Polo Club, and roughed up a powerful Talandracas polo team (Edouard Carmignac, Polito Pieres, Sapo Caset and Ali Patterson), scoring the first five goals of the match on their way to an 11-10 win in first round play of the 2015 Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup for the British Open at Cowdray Park Polo Club Wednesday morning.
Tom Morley gave Apes Hill a 2-0 lead on a pair of penalty conversions to open the game. Ralph Richardson scored the final goal of the first chukker, 3-0, to give Apes Hill a lead they would never surrender. The daunting Talandracas team was unable to score in the opening seven minutes of play.
Morley made it 4-0 on a 30-yard penalty shot in the second period followed by a goal from the field from Eduardo Astrada as the Apes Hill lead ballooned to five goals, 5-0.
Sapo Caset finally got Talandracas on the scoreboard with the final goal of the chukker, but it was Apes Hill in control of a 5-1 game.
Robinson opened the third period with a goal from the field that had Apes Hill on top, 6-1, when Talandracas came alive. Ali Patterson (replacing Zac Hagedoorn) scored his first goal of the game, 6-2. Richardson responded with a score, 7-2. Sapo Caset converted a 30-yard penalty shot and followed it up with a 65-yard neck shot through the Apes Hill goalposts that cut the lead to three goals, 7-4.
Morley converted a penalty shot to open the third, extending the Apes Hill lead to four goals, 8-4 when Talandracas got back on track. A pass from Pieres to Caset to Patterson resulted in a goal, 8-5. Caset converted a 30-yard penalty shot and added another goal from the field. After four chukkers of play Talandracas had managed to cut the lead back to a single goal, 8-7.
A determined Apes Hill took the field in the fifth, going immediately to the attack. Fouls continued to plague Talandracas, with Morley converting a penalty shot and a 60-yard Safety, 10-7. Pieres took the ball away from Astrada and passed it to a streaking Caset who scored to end the chukker trailing, 10-8.
Talandracas cut the lead to a single goal in the opening minutes of sixth chukker action, and team captain Edouard Carmignac leveled the score at 10-10 with time running down. With less than a minute to play and Talandracas deep in Apes Hill end of the field, the whistle sounded. A Talandracas foul, just years from the goal mouth gave the ball to Apes Hill on a spot hit. Morley brought the ball into play, striking it far down the field to Astrada who fought his way to the Talandracas goal for the winning goal, 11-10, seconds before the final horn sounded.
Dubai and King Power record wins
17, HB Polo 9
A reshuffled Dubai lineup (Josh Cosh, Martin Valent, Diego Cavanagh and Adolfo Cambiaso) wasted little time showing what they can do with both Adolfo Cambiaso and Diego Cavanagh in the lineup as they hammered HB Polo (Ludovic Pailloncy, Cristian Laprida, Ignacio Toccalino and Sebastien Pailloncy) 17-9 in the second British Open game of the day.
The Dubai offense had their way with HB Polo, taking control of the game early and never letting up.
Cavanagh had missed the last few games with a reported ankle injury while Cambiaso was injured in a brutal collision in his last Queens Cup game.
Dubai enters the competition as the 2014 defending British Open Champion.
King Power 10, Thai Polo 6
Thai Polo (Gustav Rausing, Matias Torres Zavaleta, Nic Roldan and Tomas Garcia del Rio) kept it close early, trailing by just a single goal, 5-4, after the first two chukkers against King Power (Tal Srivaddhanaprabha, Alejandro Muzzio, Marcos di Paola and Guillermo Willington) before riding off with a 10-6 win.
The victory was marred by a fifth chukker fall by King Power’s Guillermo Willington that had him out retiring from the game with Thai Polo trailing, 8-6. Francisco Elizalde was quickly recruited to replace Willington.
Alejandro Muzzio scored the last two goals of the game in the 10-6 King Power win.
British Open play is scheduled to continue on Thursday with El Remanso (George Hanbury, Charlie Hanbury, Pelon Stirling and Ollie Cudmore)
facing Sifani (Hilali Noordeen, Max Charlton, Agustin Merlos and Malcolm Borwick) at noon followed by a 3pm match between King Power Foxes (A. Srivaddhanaprabha, Hugo Lewis, Gonzalo Pieres and Facundo Pieres) and La Indiana (Michael Bickford, James Beim, John Paul Clarkin and James Harper)