If you wanted proof that penalty shots decide high-goal finals, Sunday’s USPA Gold Cup at the International Polo Club Palm Beach supplied it. Valiente beat Alegria 11-10, and Sapo Caset scored ten of the eleven goals, seven of them from penalties.
Valiente build a lead
Valiente’s line-up was patron Bob Jornayvaz, Santi Torres, Caset and Adolfo Cambiaso. They led 2-1 after the first chukka, helped by an early Caset penalty, and by half-time had pushed the margin out to four goals. Alegria, whose side is Julian Mannix, Clemente Zavaleta, Mariano Aguerre and Hilario Ulloa, struck early in the fourth chukka with two quick goals to make it 7-5. Caset answered with a field goal and a penalty, and Valiente were 9-5 clear.
Alegria hit back
The fifth chukka belonged to Ulloa. He scored four goals in a row, three from penalties, and the match was level at 9-9 going into the last period. Aguerre then sent a backhander between the posts to give Alegria their first lead of the afternoon, at 10-9. It did not last. Caset converted two penalties in the sixth, the first to level the scores and the second to settle the game. Cambiaso scored the only goal of the day that was not Caset’s.
Caset was named most valuable player. The best playing pony award went to Pipi, owned by Jornayvaz and ridden by Caset. Earlier on Sunday Crab Orchard beat Coca-Cola 14-9 in the Butler Handicap final.
Two down, one to go
This was the second leg of the 26-goal US Triple Crown. Valiente had already taken the C.V. Whitney Cup at the start of the month, beating Steve Van Andel’s Orchard Hill 12-8 in a final in which Cambiaso played despite an elbow injury picked up in the semi-final, and in which Torres was named most valuable player. Both Gold Cup finalists now go on to the US Open, which begins tomorrow and runs until 20 April. Valiente are the team to beat, but with Alegria running them so close, nothing looks certain.
Sources: Polo Times: Valiente wins USPA Gold Cup, Wellington Town-Crier: Valiente repeat as Piaget USPA Gold Cup champions, Polo Times: Cambiaso guides Valiente to C.V. Whitney Cup victory
