Four equal teams with patrons from four countries will be competing for
the Gold Cup, the most important Swiss polo summer prize to be
won.
The very attractive field of players is being headed by the Swiss patron Philipp Maeder, the new Swiss champion 2007 and semi finalist in the Gold Cup Gstaad 2006. The 8 goaler Pablo Jauretche is the playmaker of the presenting sponsor team HSBC Guyerzeller. Further players in Maeder’s
team are Federico Bachmann and Francisco Fucci, two handicap 5 players from Argentina.
The Austrian Robert Kofler is participating in the tournament for the first time this year. The Gstaad Palace team will be presenting themselves with a 5, 6 and 7 goaler (San- tiago Marambio, David Bernal and Ignaçio Tillous, all of them Argentineans) – this leading to the fact that they will be a bit more
well balanced than Maeder’s team.
One can look forward to the Land Rover team of the Italian Stefano Marsaglia who already won the British Open, Europe’s most important polo tournament. Besides father and son of the Pictet family, Fabien and Sascha, Alejandro Agote and Santiago Chavanne will also be playing, both of which
are Argentinean 8 goalers who have not been seen playing in our parts of the world very often so far.
Team Nespresso will also be partaking with two Europeans. The owner of the renowned Beverly Polo Clubs in Yorkshire/UK, Andrew Foreman, will act as the patron of this team; Christophe Levrat will be playing with him, an
experienced 2 goaler from France who is the president of the Polo club in Lyon as well as the trainer of the royal guard in Rabat, Morocco. In this very interesting team two players from the legendary Argentinean Novillo Astrada Dynasty are also to be found, namely Santiago Novillo Astrada, handicap 6,
and Julio Novillo Astrada with a handicap 8. A quarter of the world’s 8 goalers will be in Gstaad.
The list of the 40 best-ranked polo players of the world currently only has 10 players with the highest possible handicap of 10, 13 with a handicap 9 and only 17 players with a handicap 8. That four of them, namely Jauretche,
Chavanne, Agote and Julio Novillo Astrada will be in the Bernese Oberland shows the class of the HSBC Guyerzeller Gold Cup which is part of the World Polo Tour on the one hand, on the other hand it proofs that we can look forward to a very exciting tournament due to the equality of the teams.
Contrary to many of the other tournaments with teams that have big playing strength differences within the teams themselves, having a dominant top player and one or even two mediocre amateurs, this tournament definitely promises polo sport on a very high and spectacular level.
The most beautiful item on the agenda will most probably take place off the polo field.
On Friday, the spare day in between the qualifying and the semi final, all the players, the referees as well as riders of the Saanenland will be part of a parade through the pedestrian area of Gstaad with carriages as well as bands accompanying them. The townsfolk as well as the guests of this
charming place are kindly invited to be part of the parade and enjoy an appetizer of wine from the Salquenen area.
On Saturday evening thing will heat up when the invited guests will dine in the VIP tent and the legendary Green Go club of the Palace will move down to the airstrip of the Saanenland for the remainder of the evening.