The Polo Report
By Steve Crowder
The Spreckles Cup started today, the oldest tournament in CA and in most of the USA. Its big, the trophy cup it’s pretty and it is hard to win. The Spreckles Cup Tournament has been around what seems like forever.
The 2009 Spreckels Cup started today with big time action as Rancho Valencia champions took on Susan Figi and her Gypsy’s followed by Tri Tech and Ohana in the twilight game. The first game got close at the end of the day as the Gypsy’s never gave up trailing by several points at times. Hanalei Bay, without their fearless leader, hung on to pick up the WIN for the first round of the Spreckles Tournament.
On the East Coast it seems that Barrington is holding court as they go to 2 and 0. They pulled out a last second thriller with no time on the clock. Way down south like Argentina there are some Desert Rats fighting each other hard to qualify for the 2009 Hurlingham and Palermo Open’s. Little Mac (Frederick Mannix) now known as “the Bolt ” blistered the Midget (aka Tomas Pieres) in the opening round of the Qualifying Tournament. Alegria, the Mannix Team that is coached by Macho Man Julio Zavaleta had a huge win over Don Urbano, Tomas’ team and two former Millarville players, Mariano Gonzalez playing with El Paraiso and Ruki Bailleu playing for La Indiana, hooked up. I was Mr. Gonzalez coming out in first place. It seems quite cool that all these players have often been seen playing and competing in the California Polo scene for a long time and now we cannot get them back.
We will keep you updated about the Qualifying Tournament as it would be great to see the Bolt and Macho Man qualify for the Hurlingham and Argentine Open Tournaments.
San Diego will be a very busy place to be this weekend as well as the following weekend with the biggest polo touranment in California happening at SAN DIEGO POLO CLUB. There will be 3 games on Sat. and 6 on Sunday so be there for a very good time.
See ya.