Polo in the Pampas

At the top

Delfín Uranga takes reins as AAP President

By Lucas Noel • Photos by Sergio Llamera

The new president of the AAP succeeds Eduardo Novillo Astrada and is committed to two management pillars: internationalize the game and professionalize the digitization of the polo experience in Argentina.

Little by little, Delfín Uranga is getting used to the most important desk at the headquarters of the Argentine Polo Association in Palermo. That same chair was occupied by his father Marcos and his father-in-law Gonzalo Tanoira. Feeling comfortable in this room comes naturally to him. Speaking with him on his 48th birthday, he knows he has a challenge ahead of him that he always longed for: to continue his family legacy.

“Both, my father and my mother have been involved with the polo management. In my house that air was always breathed. I, for my part, led the Christian Polo Family Movement and the Polo Horse Breeders Association. It was logical then to come to the polo association and contribute time and skills to a sport that I love. It is a sport, but it is also an industry. It is very gratifying to be able to generate employment in a country with such a complicated situation of poverty as Argentina is going through. That altruism transcends the sport. And that this service is demanded by the world, to be able to export knowledge and talent, is a huge opportunity,” enthuses the new president of the AAP.

Bearing in mind that you were vice president of the last administration, which items do you want to deepen and which do you want to innovate?

With Eduardo [Novillo Astrada] we agreed on something very important: that more people play, watch and sponsor polo. We shared that vision and perhaps we were a little different in the ways. But it is also good to be a multidisciplinary team with different ways of approaching issues. This sum of different points of view enriches the final product. We still had some things to do, many of them related to the internationalization of sport.

Today, the pandemic slowed us down a bit, but there is a very great opportunity to work with all the countries together, especially with the United States. We have a very natural link between Argentina and the United States, being on the same continent, on the same axis. I lived in the United States for three years, played there, studied there and we developed the polo team at the University of Santa Barbara.

I believe in that opportunity, in the possibility that projects, such as the AAP’s Polo University, offer, where we create a teaching methodology, a language to unify and simplify the way in which we explain the sport. Sometimes, a player does things by inertia that he cannot explain. And for this you have to create a simple language so that people who do not know about the sport can understand it. The digitization of our proposal and the international projection are the two items on which I want to work and deepen my management.

Like his father, Delfín Uranga assumed the AAP presidency at 47 years old.

How do you unify the needs and realities of the different associations around the world?

I think that all the associations on the planet agree that we want more people to watch it, play it and sponsor it. What we lack is a global agenda for sharing practices in order to achieve that goal.

Today, I am not telling the United States what I am doing, they are not telling me what they are doing and I am sure they are doing a lot, and England, France, Spain, the other countries either. We have to see the FIP as a workbench to complement calendars, work with youth, etc. That is what we need: a common agenda, coordination and sharing good and bad experiences.

We are going through a situation [with the pandemic] that changes from month to month, so how do you imagine the Argentina Triple Crown and the Palermo Open today?

We have to be very respectful of what the government defines regarding the sanitary protocol. The season begins the first weekend of October and the vaccination plan will already be more advanced. We are lucky to be a sport that is practiced outdoors, with large and open spaces, therefore I am optimistic. [We will] surely not [be] with a full capacity, but with more possibilities than last year.

How will [you plan] the preparation work for Palermo’s Field No. 1, which has been questioned a lot because of its poor condition?

Field 1 has a problem of origin that at some point we have to solve with a definitive solution. For this year, we are going to carry out palliative work to improve it. It has a grass with little strength, it is contaminated by other grasses and its recovery is slower. We have to look for a design of the Open that does not demand so much from the field. It is not a matter related to the performance of live shows when there is no polo, but to the periodicity of the game.

Last year, it was played practically every day. It was played on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. It was impossible. We are going to have to make the decision to slow down a bit. We cannot fail again. There was a mistake, recognized by the engineer, when it was originally seeded. It was not the right grass. On Field 2 we do not have that problem, it is much stronger. Each field is a living being.

There is an idea that you have had in mind for a long time: a World Champions League. Now that you are president of the AAP, how do you imagine it and when do you think it could take place?

All the conditions are in place to do it as soon as possible. In Argentina we have a competition where in each region a league of tournaments is played and those who score the most points in the different categories come to face each other in Pilar and Palermo. And it is a celebration of federal polo. I think the same can be done at an international level. There are many 12- to 16-goal tournaments that, as Steve Jobs used to say, ‘is a matter of connections.’ They could all come to compete here in April, when the American season has ended and the English season hasn’t started yet. It is a very good time to give it space. If Palermo is an allure and people want to come, we can do it here. If there is another idea to do it in another country, there is no problem.

As AAP president, Delfín Uranga will have to deal with several challenges, including the pandemic and the poor condition of Palermo’s Field No. 1.