The Polo Report
By Steve Crowder
Sept. 9th ’09
It was a very nice Friday evening about 2 weeks ago. It was held on field one at Santa Barbara Polo Club for high-goal teams and members. It was well done as most things Ms. Ellen does at Santa Barbara, but it has NEVER BEEN THE GRAND EVENT. It is usually mixed with long speeches from locals, food and a little bit of dancing. Well this year it had, as the past couple of years, some less boring speeches and some roasting of the high-goal patrons. It is usually a source of embarrassment and entertainment as the next person gets more of the same and some get hurt more than others I suppose. If I was doing the roasting or some other groom or worker, it would not be cool, but we were not.
Pat Nesbitt, the Pacific Coast Governor does the roasting and he is very good at it. He says some things he should probably not, but that’s Pat. On the other hand he is as straight as you can be and he is not running anywhere. Pat just does it. He is also most years a Patron of the high-goal and sponsors more teams than any other CA Patron. For some reason, a fake poser named Mike (from a polo message board), has a problem with it all and he is making a huge deal out of it. I find his opinions and facts ignorant and false as I was there at the Ball and I talked to all but two patrons after the event and they did not walk out. They actually thought for the most part it was good and funny.
I find it sad that Mike, who is obviously a bothered person, finds this topic to talk about on the message board. I am sure he is one of the people who thinks he is a patron, but never sponsors basically anything other than his mouth. If he can give me 3 Patrons names who walked out because of this even being too much, I will print a retraction ASAP. My email is scrowder@poloconnect.com.
This is why people do not play polo in CA because they are like him. They only want to be polo players, not Patrons. We have 8 high-goal teams for the second year in a row in Santa Barbara and we cannot even have an 8-goal tournament. Why? Mike is a sponsor (?), who as they say . . . wannabe somebody else, so blame someone else because he cannot do it. I bet he is a “Nancy Fan” as well like Sec. of State. As for video, you might talk to the Club President or Manager as that had nothing to do with Governor. So Mike . . . get into politics and out of POLO and the horse world or sponsor a team Quietly!
Anyway Santa Barbara had 8 teams in the high goal for two years in a row and it was 20 goal polo. Look at the history books and tell us when that has happened before in the last 2 decades.
see ya