Summer at Cowdray Park builds towards one afternoon, and this year the Gold Cup for the British Open ended with Dubai holding off a fierce late challenge from King Power to win 13-11.
Both sides came into the final unbeaten, with six wins from six, so nobody could claim a soft route to the last day. Dubai lined up with Rashid Albwardy as captain, Paterson, Adolfo Cambiaso and Diego Cavanagh. King Power answered with Top Srivaddhanaprabha, Pablo Llorente, Gonzalito Pieres and Marcos di Paola.
How the final unfolded
It was a stop-start game early on. Albwardy scored the opening goal for Dubai and Pieres levelled with a penalty. The second chukker then produced five goals, every one of them from a penalty: three for Cavanagh and two for Pieres. Dubai led 4-3.
The third chukker belonged to Dubai, who added three more, including Cambiaso’s first goal of the match, to go into the break ahead 7-5. Cambiaso and Cavanagh both scored in the fourth to make it 9-6, and a Cavanagh penalty early in the fifth stretched the lead to 10-6.
That was when King Power found their rhythm. Pieres hit four goals in a row to bring the scores level at 10-10, and for a few minutes the final was wide open. Cavanagh’s penalty put Dubai back in front. In the sixth Cambiaso struck from the opening throw-in and Cavanagh added another penalty. Llorente replied with a late neck shot, but time ran out for King Power.
The numbers that mattered
- Diego Cavanagh: nine goals for Dubai, seven of them from penalties.
- Gonzalito Pieres: eight for King Power, which also made him the tournament’s top scorer on 48 goals.
- Adolfo Cambiaso: three goals, and his pony Dolfina Primicia, who played the second and sixth chukkers, was named best playing pony.
Cavanagh’s accuracy from the penalty spot was the quiet difference between the sides. In a match with so many fouls, converting almost every free hit mattered more than open-play flair, and Dubai rarely wasted one.
The Wikipedia roll of honour for the Gold Cup lists Albwardy, Paterson, Cavanagh and Cambiaso as the 2014 winners. For King Power, Pieres’s four-goal burst in the fifth chukker was a reminder of how quickly a final can turn, even if the late goals went the other way.
We will be watching how both teams carry this form through the rest of the English season.
Sources: Horse Times, Wikipedia: Gold Cup for the British Open
