Estancia Los Potreros

Many people would believe, mistakenly, that the Argentine Open held at Palermo is the main event in the polo calendar worldwide. Those really in the know, would recognise that this is not the case. Nothing, but nothing, beats the Los Potreros Polo Open, held last weekend, for thrills, spills, referee nobbling, emotional language and generally lots of Argentine passion.

The tournament was held as the culmination of a polo week at Los Potreros, with four teams entering, and with individual players with handicaps of 5 down to those whose main handicap was their own appalling playing. It was, as always, a family affair, with Lou and Kevin pitted against each other as husband and wife, and Humi pitted against his brother, cousin, uncle, nephew, second cousin, neighbours dog, etc etc. We were also delighted to welcome as our guest player, Grant Bovey, ably supported by his wife Anthea Turner, who between them at the very least brought a bit of dignity to the proceedings.

As usual, when Kevin picks the horses, teams and referees as well (along with threatening to sack Humi if he didn’t win), it was a completely balanced and even competition, with his team winning by 6-3 in the final. Congratulations to Grant, Nestor, Fran and of course the ‘patron’ Kevin.  For the record, Humi was last seen in one of our rather larger fields (about 1,000 acres of mountainous terrain) with a wheelbarrow and a fork picking up droppings, due to Lou´s sense of humour failure about losing to her husband once again.

Lou and Kevin were lucky enough to sneak away for a weekend to watch the Quarter Finals of the Argentine Polo Open at Palermo in Buenos Aires.

This championship is the premier polo championship in the world, and is the only place where you can see all of the best players together. Teams range this year in handicap from 29 to 39, and of the 8 teams competing, 7 are all-Argentine!

It was a great privilege to watch these teams at work, who make what is often a fairly aggressive sport look something like ballet on horseback! The level of play and horsemanship is simply extraordinary. For us relative novices watching, Adolfo Cambiaso (picture below) simply stood out above the rest, and received a standing ovation for one of his plays. But my money for now is on Ellerstina . . .watch this space!

Last week, Los Potreros proudly entered a team into a ‘Polo three’s’ tournament, held over a long weekend at a nearby polo estancia called ´Pompeya’. The awesome threesome consisted of (left to right), Humi ‘if we don’t win I´ll eat my hat’ Pizarro, Kevin ‘if we don’t win I´ll make Humi eat his hat’ Begg, and Plomo ‘everyone else will eat my hat because I can’t control my horses’!!

The first round went extremely well, with a resounding win for the Los Pots Hotties! Kevin returned wondering whether Cambiaso would like to come for a training session with him to pick up a few tips, after scoring 3 goals. The second round on Friday was a little more sobering, when their opposition (Humi’s retired uncle and a twelve year old) took their team to a 5-4 win against our local heroes.

Unfortunately after that, rain stopped play, and the remaining game in the qualifying rounds was decided on penalties against some strange handicapping system, that meant that our team returned crestfallen, having not reached the finals. Humi is still convinced that our team won though, so that is good enough for us!

A particular mention of thanks and applause to our lovely and very patient horses, who took all of this in their stride (literally), but were extremely happy to get back home to their green fields and our happy-go-lucky weekly polo amongst friends, watched only by a couple of hopeful vultures . . .