We had an epic first day. It was a morning stick and ball at Gines Bargallo’s Santa Aguedo Polo Club on Fatima, Pilar, Buenos Aires. It was nice to be back there. The fields are looking wonderful, and Agustin Andrada found some nice ponies for Camilla Sugden and Peter Trethowan.
After stick and ball, we went to see the money changer at Tacos Top. The Argentine Peso has devalued even further than last year, and even with a new President-elect in Javier Milei, the Peso is now officially 342 to the greenback, while the ‘blue’ market rate is 1,020 Pesos to USD$1. Incredible.
Changing US$500 into Pesos meant I very self-consciously walked out of there with the ubiquitous brown paper bag with stacks of 1,000 Peso notes.
We went straight on to Logi Polo. I love their mallets and I’ve been dealing with them for a few years. A really nice family business with top quality products.
It was Peter T’s first time in Argentina. Here he is at Logi amongst the mallets.
Stick order done, it was time for lunch at the Tack Room. We had arranged for the great Glen Gilmore to meet us there. He is in Argentina coaching the Oriflame team playing in the 10th Anniversary Thai Polo Cup. 10-goal legend Horatio Heguy was there, and so were other players such as Jero Del Carill, the young 8-goal sensation in the La Ensenada Brubank team that recently defeated Ellerstina in the Argentine Open.
It was a pleasure to meet young Jack Kiely again. I first met Jack when he was a very young boy when I played at his family’s polo club in Serpentine, Western Australia twenty years ago. Jack, who is the son of Brett and Chrissy Kiely, is now a very good 3-goal pro. He is networking in Argentina and playing pick-up games, though not in any tournaments here.
We decided to hang with Glen and went to watch him coach Oriflame in the 14-goal Thai Polo Cup. Tommy Beresford had a super game for Oriflame, but despite dominating, the team just could not score. Glen has a system of keeping track of the game, and counted 11 times they hit over the back-line instead of scoring. Their poor conversion rate from the field lost them the match 3-4.
Watching Glen coaching them was insightful in itself. He kept track of every relevant stat with a written code he has developed. He explained that he has very little time at horse changes and chukka breaks to say anything at all to the team, so his way of coding the match helps him identify what is most important to say and compress into the few seconds he has with the players during their changes.
There was a match at in the Copa De Plata Ellerstina Yellow Rose. We went to Ellerstina and caught the last three chukkas of a 16-goal game. Tommy Panelo was great to watch as he led his El Milagro team to a 9-7 win over Gonzalo Deltour’s Alra La Natividad.
With time to kill before dinner, we headed to Jumbo supermarket to stock up on Malbec, Torrontes and other essentials like cheese and olives. Despite the purchases, we hardly made a dent in the stacks in the brown paper bag.
Malaysian style, we turned up for dinner at Tinto Y Soda, and it was barely open at 7:00 PM. We were the first customers of course. Argentinians don’t think of dinner before 9 PM. It was so nice to be back there again, one of my go-to restaurants in Pilar. Agustin and Jesica Andrada, and Shyam Mehta, President of the Mumbai Gymkhana Club joined us there, with another Mumbai player, Bob Srinivas and KLAP alumnus Kuhan Kumaran. We had empanadas, followed by provolone cheese and a main course of asado de tirra of course.
How do you end a perfect day? With ice cream at Luciano’s of course!
Related Links:
Argentine Open Polo Tour 2023
Recent PBITG Links:
Vienna and the Spanish Riding School
IGEQ Conference
A Farewell for Cody
RIP Uva
Add Riding to Your Polo
Sixth Asian Gold for Abdullah AlSharbatly
Saudi Gold
Qabil Realises 25-year-long Dream
Asian Games Team Dressage
Malaysia Declared AHS-Free
KLAP Open 2023
A Day At The Races II
Polo 101
Youthful Perspectives
Julian Lancia: Learning
Feeding Napier
Julian Lancia: Campeones Otra Vez
TSJJ Cup and the EIA Round-Up
8 Team for the TSJJ Cup
Player and Equipment Bags
The KLAPtomaniacs
Shandur Top Chaos Theory
A Blog-in-the-garden
Shandur Bound
Royal Tour of Chitral and the Shandur Polo Festival
Burma-Malaya and Stevenson Cups
Speeding Up
And We Are Racing
A Day at the Races
Hannah Yeoh visits KLPC
Fuelling Up
FEI Sustainability Handbook for Event Organizers
My BTSC
R.I.P. Mr. A
What-The-Fish
Malaysian Polo 2023
The Prophet’s Thumbprint
Argentina: A Quantum Leap
Authentically Australia
FRICking Amazing
The Cycle
KLAP and the KL Youth Polo Academy
Stable Science
A Sexy MVP
Level 3
KL Academy of Polo partners with International Polo Academy
Bad Helmets
Be Careful What You Wish For
The Flying FRICsters
Pony Clubbing at KL Academy of Polo
Helmet Safety
The Cost of Horses
