Upon arriving in the Buenos Aires airport we were stunned by the cultural differences that we were experiencing. The eight hour drive from BA to Intendente Alvear gave us a great perspective of how big the countryside was and of the people who inhabited it. As we watched the seemingly endless amounts of grasslands pass by, we could easily rationalize how Argentina could be such a breeding ground for top polo facilities, players, and horses. As we came closer to our end destination in la pampa, we passed the amazing polo facilities owned by the Heguy’s themselves. Upon seeing the growing number of polo fields surrounding us, we knew we would have an unforgettable time here in Intendente.

When we finally arrived at our new home, our host and mentor, Gaston Laulhe, greeted us. He graciously gave us a tour of the places we would need to know around town.  Intendente Alvear is a small town built up by the polo that surrounds it. The majority of the people in town have some sort of affiliation with Chapalefu or the surrounding polo ranches. Eventually we finally made our way to the club itself. The main road leads us past two fields on either side as it approaches the clubhouse. The clubhouse is complete with a bar, tennis courts, swimming pool and lounging areas. On the other side of the clubhouse there are three fields surrounded by corrals pastures. Gaston then sat us down in the clubhouse and debriefed us on what we would be doing here in Argentina. He told us that there was a tournament that we would play in and that we would be preparing our tournament string as well as playing green horse chukkars.

The club was started in the 1950’s by the two brothers, Alfredo and Eduardo Heguy. The both went on to become ten goals for nearly twenty years and won the Argentine Open almost twenty times. Between the two of them they had seven sons, all of which went on to become ten goals. Nine ten goalers from the same club, not too bad.

The first week consisted primarily of each of us finalizing our horse list. We were able to get two practices in before the start of the fist tournament. Our first game was last Thursday, each team was guaranteed three games in three days, four if you made it to the finals or subsidiary finals. Our first game was against Bautista Heguy and obviously everyone knows of him, growing up watching his high goal games on film was a regular occurrence so to actually meet him in person and play on the same field as him was an honor.

We started out pretty slow and very unorganized, but thanks to Gaston’s endless amount of patience we were able to get back on track and finish the game on a high note. We ended up losing by one, not bad for a ten goal team against a fifteen goal team, especially since here you are not awarded handicap goals. Friday’s game started out a lot better but in the end we let the score slip away. We lost by three or four. Motivated by the previous day’s humiliating defeat, Saturday was a different story. We were up against Marcos Heguy, who is as equally as an imposing figure as his brother. However, we redeemed ourselves and were able to play together as a team and ended up winning by five.

Our two and one record got us into the handicap final on Sunday against a fourteen goal team. After a slow start we found ourselves down by five at the half. Luckily Gaston sat us down and he shared a few words with each of us. It worked and we were able to make a bit of a comeback to force overtime. We ended up losing but in the end we all had a great time and were happy to hear everyone wanted the underdog Americans to win. We were congratulated on how well we played and how impressed people were that we staged such an amazing comeback. Although we suffered a loss, we took a lot away from the experience and were happy to have played so well in the second half.

This tournament has been the beginning of many learning opportunities for us on this trip. We are going to continue to practice the tournament horses as well as the young ones and hopefully finalize a strong string of 7 or 8 horses that will take us to the finals again in the big Chapa Open tournament in February. For now our goals have been set and we are excited to see what we can learn along the way.