A 2pm 22-goal match between Talandracas (Edouard Carmignac, Pablo Pieres, Tommy Beresford and Sapo Caset) and HB Polo Team (Ludovic Pailloncy, Ignacio Toccalino, Pelon Stirling and Sebastien Pailloncy) at the Cowdray Park Polo Club will signal the beginning of Europe’s most prestigious polo tournament, the 2016 Gold Cup for the British Open Championship. The two teams will play for the Carlos Gracida Cup in memory of the former 10-goaler who won the British Open a record ten times.
Although HB Polo opened the Queens Cup with a 12-11 loss to Talandracas they managed to cobble together a 3-3 tournament record that ended in a 10-9 win over Sifani (Hilali Noordeen, Juan Gris Zavaleta, J.P. Clarkin and Luke Tomlinson) in the subsidiary Cartier Cup final.
Talandracas, on the other hand took the field with Polito Pieres and Sapo Caset. Both Caset and Pieres carry 10-goal handicaps in both Argentina and the United States, and you would think that they would have the advantage, but the team didn’t go as well as thought. Talandracas won only one of four games that included losses to King Power Foxes and La Bamba de Areco (twice). Their sole advantage is the fact that they played and beat HB Polo last month.
In a 4pm contest a “new look” Valiente team (Bob Jornayvaz, Ralph Richardson, Adolfo Cambiaso and Juan Martin Nero) will play their first match of the English season against the Cowdray Vikings (George Pearson, Chris Mackenzie, Jack Richardson and Alejandro Novillo Astrada)
with Adolfo Cambiaso and Juan Martin Nero in the lineup. The roster switch compliments the same arrangement that allowed Dubai to play with Cambiaso in Florida this winter where Dubai won the USPA Gold Cup and lost in the final of the United States Open in sudden-death overtime.
American patron Bob Jornayvaz has had luck with Cambiaso in the saddle for Valiente, winning the US Open, the USPA Gold Cup (2), the C.V. Whitney Cup, the Sotogrande Gold, Silver and Bronze Cups (2014) as well as the 20-goal Ylvisaker and Joe Barry Memorial Cups, and is looking to add the British Open to his collection. Currently rated the number three amateur player in the game today, Jornayvaz will be playing in his very first Gold Cup for the British Open.
The Cowdray Vikings will be making their first appearance in the 22-goal season and will be hoping to surprise a talented Valiente team that will be boasting one-half of the 2016 Queens Cup championship roster.
The thirteen team field has been broken down into three brackets with Valiente, La Indiana, Britannia El Remanso, Murus Sanctus and the Cowdray Vikings in Bracket A; Zacara, Clarke & Green, La Bamba de Areco and Talandracas in Bracket B; and the defending championship King Power Foxes, RH Polo, HB Polo and Apes Hill comprising Bracket C.