Six teams line up for the 2013 USPA Piaget Silver Cup at the Santa Barbara Polo Club with action scheduled to get underway on Friday, August 2nd with three games slated to be played.
After making their way to the finals of the Lucchese America Cup last week, the Merchant Hub team (Matias Bullrich, Toto Collardin, Michel Dorignac and Luis Escobar) dropped out of the 20-goal competition at the Santa Barbara Polo Club, with Scott Devon’s Catamount team (Scott Devon, Julio Gracida, Mike Azzaro and Brandon Phillips) will be taking the final position in the six team bracket of play.
Catamount has had a history of successes over the years including C. V. Whitney Cup titles in 2004 and 2007. A longtime fixture on the International Polo Club polo fields, Devon has mounted a team that will compete in the USPA Piaget Silver Cup and the Bombardier Pacific Coast Open this year.
Opening day play will feature a 10AM contest between La Herradura (Alvaro Fernandez, Marianito Obregon, Memo Gracida and Carlos Gracida) and Farmers and Merchants Bank (Dan Walker, Inaki Laprida, Lucas Criado and Henry Walker) on Tom Barrack’s Piocho Ranch field.
The 2PM contest will pit ERG (Scott Wood, Sugar Erskine, Jeff Blake and Paco de Narvaez) against the 2012 defending championship Lucchese team (Andres Weisz, Tavi Usandizaga, Pelon Stirling and John Muse) on the ERG field.
The 3PM match will see Ben Soleimani’s newly christened Restoration Hardware team (Ben Soleimani, Hilario Ulloa, Adam Snow and Santi Von Wernich) take the field against Catamount (Scott Devon, Julio Gracida, Mike Azzaro and Brandon Phillips). The Restoration Hardware lineup had competed as Mansour in the high goal season opening El Encanto Polo Classic, and the USPA Lucchese America Cup, which they won.