Ponylines

ONE TO WATCH: BEST AMATEUR

Canada’s Fred H Mannix IV, 24, is the world’s highest-rated amateur player. He has held a 7-goal handicap since he was 20. In 2007, playing for Park Hyatt Alegria, he qualified for the Argentine Open Championship; in previous years, he reached the semi-finals and finals of the Camara de Diputados Cup in Buenos Aires. In 2002, playing for a Rest of the Commonwealth team against England, he won the Coronation Cup at the HPA’s special Cartier International celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. In 2004 he was on the Labegorce team that captured the Queen’s Cup in England. He has competed for the USPA Gold Cup and US Open Championship. At home in Calgary, his Millarville team has won the Canadian Open five times and he has led Team Canada in several international tests overseas, including the 2001 FIP World Cup in Melbourne, Australia. He works for the Sapphire Group, a Calgary-based water treatment company.

[news] Rock stars, England teams, bright young things and much more

hurlingham [ ponylines] Chief executive

During the English closed season, it appeared that we forwarded our rain to Argentina where the polo was badly affected as a result. However, polo suffered far worse in Australia where virtually no polo has been played due to a flu epidemic. This was one reason why there were more English players in Argentina this winter than previously, but it was good to hear reports of English players taking part in tournaments at all levels from the Open downwards. Congratulations to Luke Tomlinson, Ruki Baillieu and Jaime Huidoboro, all of whom went to 8 in Argentina, and to an all-English team of James Beim, Malcolm Borwick, Mark Tomlinson and Ed Hitchman which reached the final of the 23-goal Provincia. It is not easy for the players to establish themselves in competitive teams in Argentina, and the HPA is looking at ways in which it might help.

At home cold winds have blown through the country and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not filled individuals with financial optimism for the future. Nevertheless, Arena polo has been busy and, with the financial support of the HPA, the all-England Polo Club Hickstead hosted an international test match between England and South Africa in January. This is the first time in many years that England has hosted a visiting arena team and after a warm-up in Ireland, the South African team acquitted itself with great style but England won comfortably 18-13. The day was a great success with an excellent turnout and good weather.

In early February an England team of Mark Tomlinson (captain), James Beim, Malcolm Borwick and Tom Morley will play New Zealand at Kihikihi and at the same time a Young England team will spend just under three weeks playing matches on both the South and North Island. Later in February an England team is due to play the South African 14-goal FIP team in Cape Town in preparation for the FIP World Championships in Mexico towards the end of April. This is not an ideal time given that the English season is starting just then and the HPA is extremely fortunate that so many players have made themselves available then. Having been semi-finalists in 2001 and finalists in 2004 it is hoped that we will go one better this time but the competition is very tough even though the Argentines have sadly absented themselves from the tournament.

Looking forward to this season we are delighted that Australia have accepted the invitation to play the Coronation Cup on Cartier International Day and that Audi have agreed to continue to sponsor the England team for a further two years. In addition, both Cadenza and Crew have agreed to continue their support and we welcome Virgin as an additional sponsor for the England team. Williams de Broe has also agreed a three-year sponsorship of the Gloucestershire Test Match. A new sponsor, St Regis Hotels, have agreed to sponsor the second Test match which is due to be held at Cowdray at the end of the season. I would also like to take the opportunity to mention the commemorative match which will be held at Guards Polo Club on 29th May to raise funds for 2012 when a match will be played between England and Ireland to commemorate the 1908 Olympics, when the finals were played at Smith’s Lawn between Hurlingham and Ireland.

APES HILL MAKES HISTORY WITH ARGENTINE SUCCESS

Sir Charles Williams’s Apes Hill Club Barbados team made history in December when they beat Don Urbano 14-11 in the Provincia de Buenos Aires semi-finals –becoming the first all-English team to reach an Argentine domestic final. Ed Hitchman, Mark Tomlinson, James Beim and Malcolm Borwick (pictured above from left) went on to meet Cuatro Vientos at Palermo, with Pelon Stirling controlling much of the game. Despite Cuatro Vientos leading 10-4 midway through the fifth chukka, a determined Apes Hill team came back to 12-8 at the final whistle, including a spectacular 5b penalty from Malcolm Borwick.

‘It was always going to be tough playing against Pelon, especially when he was so well mounted. Reaching a Palermo final has given the team a lot of confidence and a base to build for the future,’ reflected Mark Tomlinson. Tomlinson will rejoin the Apes Hill team this summer after recovering from his June 2007 hand injury. He is joined by his brother Luke, Tom Morley and Ed Hitchman. The team has been training in Argentina this winter in the buildup to the Queens and Gold Cups.

BAKER MAKES BREAD (FOR CHARITY)

Cream legend Ginger Baker has just completed a labour of love that took even longer than one of his famous drum solos. Over the past four years he has singlehandedly created a field at his South African home where he can host polo and jazz events to raise money for local charities. Ginger reports, in his own words…

‘the first event was an enormous success... huge crowd... cars from all over western cape without a lot of publicity... everyone looking forward to the next one... sponsor extremely happy!!... “beautiful gate” did really well... we played one 4 chukka game... i actually played [first time for 5 years] we did o.k... gave the other side a goal [played on the flat] and lost 8-7... great trophies for players... lots of music after....local dance group [hip hop] did a great show in front of new grandstand/clubhouse... there was a steel band and a cape town jazz group led by a girl singer... and to cap it all i did a 17 minute drum solo....a truly great event... after more than 5 years hard work my dream has finally come true... great feeling... though it pissed with rain all morning the field played marvelously... fantastic evening… regardens... ginger.’

CHUKKAS

Steve Orthwein, former Chairman of the US Polo Association, is reviving the longdormant Camacho Cup International between the USA and Mexico. It will be played at 26 goals on 15 March at Orthwein’s new Port Mayaca Polo Club north of Palm Beach. The USPA has sanctioned the revival of the series that started in 1941, named after the then Mexican president, General Manuel Avila Camacho, himself a polo player. The USA won the first five of the series, then Mexico triumphed in the next three, including the last in 1988. Mexican-American Memo Gracida is organising the Mexico team.

Construction has started on a new clubhouse at Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park. It will be a white, timber-framed, tile-roofed building like the Royal Box on the Queen’s Ground at Smith’s Lawn.

California teenager Santiago Torres won Most Valuable Player in Argentina’s December Potrillos tournament for under-14s. ‘Santi’ was Hurlingham’s amateur player of the Winter 2006 issue.

America’s televised series Triple Crown of Polo, sponsored by Lexus and Tiffany, has dropped Santa Barbara from its 2008 schedule in favour of San Diego, California. The other two venues for filming are Sarasota, Florida, and Aiken, South Carolina.

USPA Properties Inc, the multi-million dollar marketing arm of the USPA, has expanded into Europe and the Indian sub-continent with licensees in Italy and India.

John Goodman, owner of the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida, has bought Outback Farm from Tim Gannon. Gannon, whose Outback team won five US Opens, has joined the board of directors at Hobe Sound Polo Club, north of Palm Beach.

The US Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in Lake Worth, Florida, is offering commemorative bricks at the museum’s entrance. For a $250 tax-free donation, it will add an 8” x 8” brick inscribed with up to 90 words.

Britain’s Pony Club Polo has its first-ever female chairperson. Teresa Hodges, who replaces David Morley, was manager of PCP’s Jorrocks division. She once played in the Pony Clubs herself and now has children who compete in the programme.

ADOLFO’S TRIUMPH

Triumph Speed Twin Horsepower: 25 Cool rating: 100 per cent

Adolfo Cambioso owns two Triumph motorcycles –one in the USA and, in Argentina, the vintage Triumph Speed Twin pictured on the cover, which his wife Maria bought and had restored for his birthday. The Speed Twin is a true thoroughbred and a biking legend: it was designed in 1937 by Edward Turner who began working for Triumph the previous year following its acquisition by Jack Sangster, the owner of rival marque Ariel.

Sangster bought Triumph when it was in poor financial shape as a result of the Great Depression of 1929. It needed a dramatic pick-me-up, and that came in the form of the light and powerful 500cc, twin-cylinder engine that was at the heart of the Speed Twin. The throaty roar from its two exhaust pipes has epitomised British motorcycling ever since, and the model’s engine formed the basis of every two-cylinder Triumph through to the 1980s, including the Thunderbird (as ridden by Marlon Brando in The Wild One) the TR6 Trophy (as ridden by Steve McQueen in The Great Escape) and the legendary Bonneville (as ridden by The Fonz in Happy Days). SIMON DE BURTON

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE…

Pony’s name Hale Bopp Age 16 Sex Mare Colour Dark brown Height 15h Origin USA

Adam Snow is a 9-goal professional who resides with his veterinarian wife, Shelley, and three boys – Dylan, Nathan and Aidan – in Aiken, South Carolina. Adam won US Opens in 2002 and 2006. Hale Bopp was an integral part of both these victories – and many others over the years.

I purchased Hale Bopp in 1998. She had been bred and raced in Michigan by Kathy Womack and then trained to polo by Roger Redman in Detroit and Sarasota. When Roger showed me the mare in Wellington, he suggested that Bee Bop (as he called her) was probably too small for me but could suit a woman player. I rode her once, practiced her once and purchased her. Four days later she went as a back-up spare in our Gold Cup match against Outback. I played her about 30 seconds at the end of an early chukka and had planned that this would be it. But she felt pretty good and I asked to keep her on the line. Next time, I played her 1½ minutes, and she felt very good. And I finished playing her the last half of the sixth chukka in a one-goal game that bounced our way. Barely six years old, this was a mare I had only known five days and who had only played up to 12-goal polo, yet she was already probably my best horse. The next game she started a chukka – the fourth, which is usually where I play her. Since then she’s never looked back, playing with me in every important high goal season and, so far, winning six Best Playing Pony prizes along the way.

She is unique for her turned-in ears, daisy-cutter stride and sassy attitude. She’s the shortest horse I own, maybe 15h with shoes on, and about as wide as she is tall. Her width and her heart are the reasons size doesn’t matter when she goes up against bigger animals. Her greatest strength is that she decelerates, turns and exits quicker than any horse I’ve ridden. It’s this kind of collected energy that gives me the feeling that, ‘if I think it, we’re doing it’.

And she keeps playing! She’s going on her 10th straight year of high goal polo, thanks largely to the help of Shelley and her acupuncture. This October, at age 15 she won her latest BPP prize in the Silver Cup finals. She doesn’t know how old she is (or how big) – and I’m not going to tell her.

HOOKED ON POLO

Paris-born Cyrille Costes, 44, is based in Geneva, Switzerland, as Vice-President for Business Development for Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. Mercuria was presenting sponsor of the 2007 Movistar Argentine Open Championship at Palermo in Buenos Aires.

‘I’ve ridden since I was seven years old and have been in the saddle wherever I’ve been based during my business career, just pleasure riding and a bit of jumping for fun, but never in competition. When I was based in New Delhi in the Eighties, I rode at the Army Polo & Riding Club, but I never paid attention to the polo there.

‘After moving to Switzerland, a Swiss friend, Pierre Louis Chardier, invited me to take up polo at Veytay Polo Club outside Geneva. My son Edouard, now 13, started playing at the same time. When I was in Argentina I played chukkas with the Pieres family at Ellerstina and met some great players there, as well as Frankie Dorignac, president of the Argentine polo association.

‘My company was already into sports sponsorship with tennis in Poland, a German show-jumping team and a marathon in China. In 2006 Mercuria entertained South American clients at the Argentine Open Championship and last year we became presenting sponsor for the event. I also presented the new Mercuria Cup to winners of one of the semi-finals. The Argentine Open represents the pinnacle of the sport and we now consider it the jewel in the crown of our sports sponsorship.

‘After just a couple of years, I’m really hooked on the game, as is my son. Its appeal for us is the close relationship between man and horse, the team spirit in competition and the adrenalin rush of the action in a match. I guess it’s now time for us to start buying ponies and get really stuck in.’

For more information on hurlingham magazine, visit www.hurlinghampolo.com

US TRUST CHALLENGE CUP

‘It was a great match, and they would not go away quietly,’ said Kris Kampsen, who scored eight goals and was named MVP as Catamount beat Tamera 14-12 in the finals of the US Trust Challenge Cup at the Grand Champions Polo Club in Wellington. ‘We thought we had it under control early in the game, but they made some great adjustments at half-time and we barely withstood their charge in the last three chukkas.’

Tamera’s Alejandro Poma picked up the Tournament’s Amateur MVP and consistently played above his 1-goal handicap. Teammate Luis Escobar’s mare, Emma, won the professional Best Playing Pony while Catamount’s Melissa Ganzi’s mare Tora won recognition as best playing amateur. There was a $25,000 prize for the winners, and the same amount is on offer for another US Trust Challenge, at Port Mayaca in March. This time it’s an 18-goal event supported by the Grand Champions League and Port Mayaca.

PILARA LAUNCH

On 19 November 2007 the Pilara residential community, near the Argentine polo association fields just outside Pilar, was launched at a ceremony led by Pancho Ibanez. Also present were Jack Nicklaus (above, whose Signature Golf Course graces the development) and Gabriela Sabatini. A few days later, the two new polo fields played host to the Ambassadors Cup. (See the FIP feature on page 38 for the history of this event.)

ENGLAND FIP TEAM

England have changed their line-up for the FIP World Championships in Mexico in April. They will be giving away half a goal on handicap to the seven other finalists. The 14-goal England team that qualified in the Europe zone play-offs at Sotogrande, Spain, last spring was comprised of (l to r) Tom Morley (5) and 3-goalers George Meyrick, Ed Hitchman and Nina Clarkin. Since then, Meyrick’s handicap has gone up to 4. Now the England selectors under John Tinsley, chairman of the International Committee of the HPA, have decided to drop Clarkin and bring in another 3-goaler, Henry Fisher, bringing the team up to 15 goals. Under FIP rules, a team may exceed the 14-goal limit so long as three players remain from those who competed in the qualifiers. Alternates for England have yet to be selected. They will fly to Argentina for a week of practice before going on to Mexico City. HS

ENGLISH HIGH GOAL

The season starts in May, with more than 20 teams expected to play in one or more of the ‘big four’ 22-goal competitions. Around a third of the patrons are English. The Milford Havens will field two teams for the first time: George is back with Broncos and his wife Clare leads a new team. Another newcomer is Australia’s Spencer Young with Yindarra. Just three teams are expected to keep the same line-ups as last season: Lovelocks, Talandracas and the allEnglish Apes Hill. Both finalists in the 2007 British Open, Venezuelan Victor Vargas’s Lechuza Caracas and Italian Alfio Marchinin’s Loro Piana, are making changes because of raised handicaps. Veteran Argentine pro Alejandro Diaz Alberdi will rejoin the Albwardy’s Dubai squad after a year’s absence. Four professionals rated at 10 goals in the UK will be in the line-ups: Adolfo Cambiaso, Facundo Pieres, Sebastian Merlos and Juan Martin Nero. For the first time in several years an American professional will be playing in England: 8-goaler Julio Arellano is joining Frenchman Jean-Francois Decaux’s Brittany team. HS

A DREAM COME TRUE

When 11-year-old Caroline Dreesmann’s parents planned to take her to St Moritz for the Polo Championships, she told them her dream was to stick-and-ball in the snow. She persevered, despite her father’s admonitions that this was a high goal tournament played by professionals and there was no possibility of her setting foot on the field. Undeterred, she packed her riding boots and polo helmet. Fortunately, a knight in shining armour – in the form of Cartier captain Jose Donoso – heard about the young lady’s determination to play. After his stunning victory in the semi-final match the field cleared and a lone Cartier pony remained saddled-up and waiting on the sidelines. Jose gallantly helped Caroline up onto her mount, walked her onto the pitch and threw in the ball. There followed half an hour of pure polo fun. Who says dreams don’t come

SADDLE UP WITH...

LUCAS MONTEVERDE

Nationality Argentine Age 31 Handicap 10 in Argentina, 9 in US and 8 in England After his third Argentine Open win, Lucas deservedly went to 10 in his country. He started playing polo as a family tradition. In 2005 he joined La Dolfina.

Did you expect to reach the 10? Honestly, yes. Not only as a result of my work, but also due to the great performance of the team during the Argentine Open. We won the tournament unbeaten in Palermo, as happened in the last three years, confirming we deserved the 40 goals. There were no more excuses.

How did you start playing polo? My grandfather, father and uncles gave me my first polo lessons when I was a boy. When I grew up, I moved to Pilar to |improve my play, helped by my uncle Fernando Monteverde and Gonzalo Pieres. From them I learnt most of my polo. After that, Lolo Castagnola invited me to join La Dolfina.

Who has been the biggest influence on your polo career? I have no models for my polo. I learnt from many great players, but I do not try to copy or imitate them.

Have you always played as a number two? Always. I have done since I was a boy. I am very used to playing as a second forward and I like it very much.

How did you feel after scoring the decisive goal in the final of the Argentine Open? A great satisfaction! Nobody expected me to score, given that I play with Cambiaso, whose ability to define important matches is well known. God wanted it to be me!

Will you play for La Dolfina in 2008? Of course. Many people said there should be changes in my team, but I can confirm we will all play together this year.