Pompeya Polo Tournament 2009
And so finally the big day arrived!
Whilst Buenos Aires is the undisputed capital of the polo-playing community in Argentina, there is a thriving low to medium goal circuit in Cordoba, with 6 excellent sets of grounds within about half an hour of each other. It was at one of these, Pompeya Polo Club in Ascochinga, where the season has kicked off this weekend with a 3 day tournament of polo, pato and endurance riding.
This year it is Lou’s turn to represent the estancia, and so her and the horses set off early Friday morning. For the horses, it is a bit like going from playing football in the back garden to playing at Wembley stadium, but as usual they took it all in their stride - at least a bit more than Lou did!
There are two things that are particularly interesting about polo in Argentina. One is the low-key, non-fussy and non-pretentious approach to the whole thing. Ponies are delivered to the polo grounds in open-top cattle trucks (even at the highest levels), blankets are mde out of old feed bags and spectators will sit on the boards round the grounds.
The other thing of note is that polo here is almost entirely a male preserve, and so in the whole tournament only one female player other than Lou has been spotted . . .which makes for fast, furious and sometimes quite intimidating play.
So Lou and the intrepid Los Pots ponies headed into their game of polo ‘threes’ (3 a side) with knees a-trembling. Thence followed four fast and furious chukkas (that felt more like an hour each than 7 minutes - to Lou at least!) - 1-0 to us, 1-3 to them, 4-4 all square and finally 5-5 at the end of the fourth chukka. More than a little relieved that it was all over, Lou headed to the sidelines, only to find that because it was a draw there was to be a ‘golden goal’ in a fifth chukka. So back onto the ground to take up the battle once again. 3 minutes later and the oponents scored, so a final score of 5-6 to them.
Lou, the ponies and everyone else in one piece, and certainly not a drubbing, so all in all a successful day. Second game on Friday . . .watch this space!
