La Karina won back-to-back tournaments this past weekend at the Aspen Valley Polo Club.
In front of a worldwide ChukkerTV audience, La Karina captured the Basalt Handicap Cup and Aspen Valley Polo Cup.
On Friday at Sopris Field, La Karina (Peter Holowesko, Brian Boyd, Nic Roldan, Carlitos Gracida) captured the Basalt Handicap Cup with victories over FlexJet (Melissa Ganzi/Riley Ganzi, Chris Dawson, Mariano Gracida, Juan Bollini), 2-1, and Aspen Valley Polo (Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Lucas Lalor, Stewart Armstrong), 4-3.
Brian Boyd led La Karina in scoring with three goals including two in the opening chukker and played well defensively to earn Most Valuable Player honors.
Miss $, a four-year-old grey mare ridden by Mariano Gracida and owned by Halo Polo, was selected as Best Playing Pony.
Basalt Handicap Cup Best Playing Pony Miss $ owned by Halo Polo and ridden by Mariano Gracida.
Also scoring for La Karina was Nic Roldan with two goals and Carlitos Gracida with one. Juancito Bollini led Aspen Valley Polo scoring with three goals and Grant Ganzi and Lucas Lalor each had two. For FlexJet, Melissa Ganzi, Chris Dawson and Mariano Gracida each had one goal.
La Karina was dominant throughout the Basalt Handicap Cup tournament winning opening day action and final round to remain unbeaten.
Aspen Valley Polo Cup champions La Karina Nic Roldan, Juancito Bollini, Grant Ganzi, Brian Boyd
In Sunday’s Aspen Valley Polo Club featured tournament, La Karina was just as dominant to win the Aspen Valley Polo Cup.
Riley Ganzi, 15, an up-and-coming player who will be a sophomore at St. Andrew’s School this fall, earned her first major Most Valuable Player award at a medium goal tournament.
Aspen Valley Polo Cup MVP Riley Ganzi receiving her award.
Sophie, an eight-year-old Bay mare, owned and played by Stewart Armstrong, was chosen as Best Playing Pony.
La Karina (Brian Boyd, Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Nic Roldan) was just as dominant with Bollini filling in for Holowesko, who returned home after Friday’s victory.
La Karina defeated FlexJet (Melissa Ganzi, Chris Dawson, Mariano Gracida, Juan Bollini), 7-4, and tied Audi (Riley Ganzi, Lucas Lalor, Carlitos Gracida, Stewart Armstrong), 7-7, to clinch the title.
During halftime, the Aspen Valley Polo Club Polo School kids put on an entertaining and competitive foot mallet demonstration with Nico Ramirez finishing as the leading scorer.
This week, in addition to Kids Polo on Tuesday and Arena Polo on Wednesday at 5 p.m., Aspen Valley Polo Club will host the Emma Challenge.
The tournament opens Friday at 11 a.m. at Sopris Field. The teams are La Karina (Melissa Ganzi, Brian Boyd, Juan Bollini, Mariano Gracida); FlexJet (Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Lucas Lalor, Stewart Armstrong) and KIG (Bash Kazi, Marc Ganzi, Carlitos Gracida, Nic Roldan).
The future of polo looks bright with these young players preparing to play at the Aspen Valley Polo Club Polo School.
The Emma Challenge is named after the town of Emma, Colo. located on Highway 82 between Carbondale and Aspen. The championship final is the Sunday featured game at the Club at 3 p.m.
Six summer tournaments have been played at Aspen Valley Polo Club. Melody Polo Team won the first two tournaments–Independence Cup and ChukkerTV Challenge, Aspen Valley Polo Team won the Aspen Valley Cup and Travieso won the Craig Sakin Memorial.
The remainder of the tournament schedule is the Aug. 5-9, Louis Vuitton Cup; Aug. 14-16 Mount Sopris Cup; and Aug. 12-23 Rocky Mountain Cup.
ChukkerTV, the leaders in polo broadcasting, is live streaming the club’s tournaments including the prestigious Louis Vuitton Cup and Rocky Mountain Cup, which attracted huge crowds last season.
In addition to Aspen Valley Polo Club action, ChukkerTV’s Summer Tour, a 13,000-mile cross country trip featuring several U.S. Polo Association tournaments at various U.S. clubs, is also under way.
ChukkerTV, an independent media company, was the first to introduce state-of-the-art live streaming technology in January, 2014 at Grand Champions Polo Club, where it was well-received for its cutting-edge technology and ability to promote the sport to a larger audience and continues to build and improve its technology.