White Birch’s Mariano Aguerre named MVP; Hilario Ulloa’s stallion Machitos Mesquite named Best Playing Pony.
Mariano Aguerre MVP.
The United States Polo Association today announced that White Birch won the 2015 Butler Handicap on July 23, defeating Airstream in the finals.
White Birch put 3 goals on the scoreboard right away and scored 5 more goals before they faced a counter attack by Airstream’s Guillermo Agüero in the second chukker. By half time White Birch was up 10-4, but Airstream refused to give up. Both teams kept elevating their games and the match ended in White Birch’s favor, 16-9.
Best Playing Pony
“It was an honor to play in a tournament of this level in the Northeast with the history and tradition of the Butler Handicap,” said MVP Mariano Aguerre. “Both teams played very well and it was without a doubt the best match of the season for White Birch”
Paul Butler, for whom the Butler Handicap is named after, graduated from the University of Illinois and served as a Lieutenant during the First World War. In 1954 the Butler Handicap national tournament was created to run concurrently with the U.S. Open and did so for several years before becoming its own prestigious tournament.
This was the first year the Butler Handicap was played at Greenwich Polo Club. The exhilarating high-goal season at Greenwich Polo Club will conclude with the East Coast Open 20-goal tournament that will commence on Sunday, August 23, 2015, continue on Sunday, August 30, 2015 and conclude with the championship match on Sunday, September 6, 2015. The USPA will live stream the preliminary and semi-final matches on ChukkerTV, and NBC Sports Network will air a 60-minute National broadcast of the East Coast Open Final on September 13, 2015.