Queen’s Cup Semi-Finals 2018
Wednesday, June 13th was an important day for high goal polo in England, as the Semi-Finals for the Cartier Queen’s Cup was played out on the Duke and Queen’s grounds.
Two fairly new teams in the English high goal took to the field for the first match, Park Place vs Valiente.
Park Place is new to the high goal scene and fairly new to the polo scene in general! Patron Andrey Borodin only started playing polo 3 years ago. Evidently, he got bitten by the polo bug and his passion and ambition for polo only grew from there, with his Park Place team now as one of the finalists of the prestigious Queen’s Cup.
Park Place Polo: Andrey Borodin (0), Juan Britos (7), Hilario Ulloa (10), Tommy Beresford (5)
A happy and relaxed Park Place team after their win
Valiente is a world-renowned polo team, with the superstar Adolfo Cambiaso leading the pack to victory on many occasions in both the USA and Argentina, it was no surprise that they would be fighting for the most sought after trophies in the UK as well.
Valiente Polo Team: Robert Jornayvaz (1), Hugo Lewis (4), Christian “Magoo” Laprida (7), Adolfo Cambiaso (10)
Organised chaos
The teams were pumped and ready to go and win their place in the final. A few chukkers of “sticky polo” with short plays and lots of fouls didn’t give much suspense, but Park Place picked up the speed and the Queen’s Cup top scorer Juan Britos powered through with field goals. The boys in blue definitely went for the saying “teamwork makes the dream work” always backing each other up and sending passes, nobody was hoarding the ball so to say. They took the lead and kept it throughout the match with an 11-9 win.
Hilario Ulloa on a breakaway from Magoo Laprida
Juan Britos was awarded MVP and Hilario Ulloa’s stallion Minchatos Mesquite was awarded Best Playing Pony.
Snack sessions and socializing between matches and then the crowd moved over to the Queen’s ground to watch the second match of the day.
The second Semi-Final started very strong, with La Indiana (a strong team that has reached the final on several occasions already) against a fairly new team of La Bamba de Areco, featuring two of the nine 10-goalers in the world, Juan Martin Nero and David “Pelon” Stirling, check out this post if you are not sure what “10-goalers” means 😉
La Indiana: Michael Bickford (1), Nic Roldan (7), Facundo Pieres (10), Alec White (4)
La Bamba de Areco: Jean Francois Decaux (0), Byron Watson (3), David Stirling (9) (rated at 10 in Argentina), Juan Martin Nero (10)
When your camera battery runs out so you experiment with taking a picture through the binocular lens.
Alec White and Facundo Pieres surrounded by La Bamba’s David “Pelon” Stirling (3) and Juan Martin Nero (4) – Cartier Queen’s Cup semi-finals at Guards Polo Club, 13/06/2018 – Park Place vs Valiente and La Indiana vs La Bamba de Areco – © www.imagesofpolo.com
A little #PoloPlayerinTheMaking having fun at half-time
An even and slow start made everyone pay attention and think that La Bamba could be a tough match for La Indiana. But the guys in black couldn’t quite find their flow, missing goal shots and creating penalty opportunities for La Indiana, which Facundo Pieres and Nic Roldan had no problem firing through the goal posts. And impressive 13-6 final score saw La Indiana proudly go on to the final on Sunday against Park Place. Nic Roldan was named MVP and Facundo Pieres’ mare Olé received Best Playing Pony.
Michael Bickford and his father happy after the La Indiana win
Ros Packer and Jock Green-Armytage with La Indiana, winners of the day’s second Cartier Queen’s Cup Semi-Final (Facundo Pieres, Michael Bickford, Alec White and Nic Roldan- Cartier Queen’s Cup semi-finals at Guards Polo Club, 13/06/2018 – Park Place vs Valiente and La Indiana vs La Bamba de Areco – © www.imagesofpolo.com
The final will be shown live at www.guardspoloclub.com/guards-tv at 3pm on Sunday the 17th.
