July 22nd ’07: Cotterel Polo Farms wins 20th Annual Denver Polo Classic aka USPA Congressional Cup @ High Prairie International PC (CO)
The 20th Annual Denver Polo Classic charity match presented by Avande (denverpolo.org) is supported by The Denver Active 20/30 Children’s Foundation, a non profit organization that raises money for children’s charities in Denver (CO). The Denver Polo Classic is the largest charitable Polo tournament in the United States. The Denver Polo Classic was started twenty years ago when a group of young businessmen formed the Denver Active 20-30 Children’s Foundation. Their mission was to raise money for at-risk and disadvantaged youth. That first year they started the 1st Annual Denver Polo Classic which raised $1,200. Twenty years later their goal is to raise over $300,000. The tournament is now also titled the USPA Congressional Cup (6 to 10 Goals).
It wasn’t easy for the Champions to obtain the prestigious win of this well-known tournament. They had to face a tough team in their first match, Ashlawn. They were successful in defeating Ashlaw by 2 goals. In the Semis they had to battle it out with the “Undefeated” home and host team High Prairie. Cotterel Farms controlled most of the game until Hugo Barabucci (High Prairie) pulled out the big guns and tied it up. Santiago “Topo” Mendez was the hero of the game for Cotterel Farms by scoring the winning goal in sudden death overtime after a big run. In their third match of the tournament, Cotterel Farms was up against Tanaconda. Tanaconda won both of their previous games by one goal. That didn’t mean Cotterel Farms could count on victory. Both of the teams played their best to impress the crowd (around 2500 spectators). Tanaconda started the game with three goals in their favor which made things really complicated for the champs to close the gap. By the end of the of the 3rd chukker Cotterel Farms closed the gap and tied the game 7 to 7. Tanaconda fired up the engines with the hands of Jorgito Cernadas after the 1st half and won chukker 4 by 2 goals. Finally in the last two periods Cotterel Farms took control of the game and put a two goal diference on the scoreboard with excellent team work by the Saracco brothers (Luis and Ignacio) with the help of Jenn Luttrell and the magic touch of Topo Mendez. Cotterel Farms won the finals with a score of 13 to 11. Santiago “Sharkie” Mendez (aka Topo) was named the MVP of the match.
Cotterel Farms from left to right: Ignacio Saracco, Jeni Luttrell, Luis Saracco and Topo Mendez.
The tournament had six teams divided into two brackets:
Bracket A:
Tanaconda
Tan Kan 0
Tatu Gomez Romero 3
Jorgito Cernadas 4
Ray mayer 0=7
Castle Centerstone
Brad Brown 1
Gonzalo Vinuales 2
Santiago Botaro 6
Michael Payne 1=10
Steve’s Team
Steve Leblang 0
Simon Martineau 1
Santiago Wulf 5
Fernando 3=9
Bracket B
Cotterel Polo Farms
Jennifer Luttrell 0
Ignacio Saracco 2
Luis Saracco 4
Santiago Mendez 4=10
High Prairie
Christian Moon 1
Nick Cifuni 3
Hugo Barabucci 6
Bob Grey 0=10
Ashlawn
Jeff Leeper
Santiago 0
Marcelo Freyre 5
Agustin Wulf 4=9