White Birch, Greenwich Polo Club’s home team, came from behind to defeat Palm Beach Equine 11-8 for the East Coast Bronze Cup on a hot but picture-perfect Father’s Day that saw the start of summer. All afternoon, White Birch’s Pablo Llorente Jr. and Palm Beach Equine’s Gringo Colombres mixed it up in what was a seesaw match for most of the chukkers. But in the end White Birch pulled away, anchored by tournament MVP Chris Brant, son of club founder Peter Brant.
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Read MoreIf you are a reader of this blog, then you know that I am writing a series of novels called "The Games Men Play" and set in the worlds of swimming, tennis and football. The first two, "Water Music" and "The Penalty for Holding," are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The third will explore the equestrian worlds of show jumping, polo and Thoroughbred racing. It's a tale of bloodlines and bloodlust set amid rival equestrian families and told in part from the viewpoint of a colt that is trying to become the first since Whirlaway to win the Triple Crown and the Travers Stakes.
With this in mind, I thought you'd enjoy a repost from WAG Weekly, the e-newsletter that's part of my editing day job, about the other Open starting today in the New York metro area….
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Read MoreTwo of the best Sunday afternoons I’ve spent recently found me taking a break from blogging and novel-writing to relish show jumping at Old Salem Farm in North Salem, N.Y. and polo at Connecticut’s Greenwich Polo Club. Both sports figure in the third planned novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” a tale of blood and bloodlines about rival horse families told in part from the viewpoint of a racehorse trying to become the first since Whirlaway to win the Triple Crown and the Travers at Saratoga. ...
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Read MoreThere’s no Prince Harry to spice up the Greenwich Polo Club this year, but that doesn’t mean fans aren’t in for an exciting season.
Things get off to a rollicking start Sunday, June 1 with the White Birch home team – named after club founder Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm and White Birch Paper – in action against CT Energia. The home team will be led by Argentina’s Mariano Aguerre, considered one of the all-time greats, and his fleet countryman Hilario Ulloa. In April, the two teamed to help Alegria take the U.S. Open title.
The polo club is set in Greenwich’s verdant, undulating backcountry. Recently, I had a chance to chat there about the season with Australia’s Nick Manifold, who’ll be playing No. 2, an offensive position, for CT Energia Sunday. What a treat it was to sit out in the grandstand on a picture-perfect spring day, the cottony cumulus clouds so ripe and low that they seemed ready to touch the Jim Dine sculpture (think a huge, modern “Winged Victory”) that stands guard across the field. As the staff put the finishing touches on the immaculately manicured expanse and added patrons’ nameplates to the box seats, Nick gave this relative newbie a polo primer, something I was extremely grateful for as my one experience with the game had been last May’s Sentebale charity match starring Prince Harry and Nacho Figueras that was an otherworldly media event. (Polo does, however, figure in “Criterion,” the third novel in my “The Games Men Play” series, the story of a star-crossed equestrian family told in part from the viewpoint of a horse trying to win the Triple Crown.)
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