April brought the biggest upset of the Palm Beach season. On Sunday 22 April, Daily Racing Form beat Valiente 10-9 in the U.S. Open Polo Championship final, ending a bid for a clean sweep of the Triple Crown of Polo. Three weeks earlier, Valiente had won the USPA Gold Cup.
USPA Gold Cup final: Valiente 12, Flexjet 11
On Sunday 1 April, Valiente (Adolfo Cambiaso, Facundo Pieres, Tommy Beresford and Jornayvaz) edged Flexjet 12-11. Pieres scored two quick goals in the first chukka, and Valiente led 6-3 at half-time. Flexjet’s Rodrigo de Andrade and Nico Pieres hit back after the break. Nico Pieres hit a giant neckshot and converted a penalty 4 and a penalty 6 in the fifth. De Andrade scored twice in a row in the last chukka to bring Flexjet to within a goal, but the 30-second horn ended their charge. Nico Pieres scored seven of his team’s 11 goals, five from the penalty line, and was named MVP.
U.S. Open final: Daily Racing Form 10, Valiente 9
Daily Racing Form (Jared Zenni, Hilario Ulloa, Mariano Obregón and Agustín Obregón) had reached the final undefeated. It was a battle of 10-goalers early on, with Ulloa holding his own against Cambiaso and Pieres. Pieres scored the first goal two minutes in, Ulloa answered with a breakaway, and the lead changed hands in the early chukkas. Daily Racing Form went in at half-time leading 5-4, and they held a one-goal lead for most of the second half.
Early in the fifth, a Valiente backshot accidentally struck Ulloa in the face, and the team captain was down for several minutes. He got back on, with a deep cut and bruise by his right eye, and kept going. Matching goals from both sides in the fifth left it 9-8 to Daily Racing Form. Zenni then scored from distance late in the match, and a final penalty 2 conversion from Pieres was not enough. The final score was 10-9.
Awards
- MVP: Jared Zenni, who at 22 became the first Team USPA member to win a U.S. Open title.
- Best Playing Pony: Sally, an eight-year-old Argentine mare owned and ridden by Mariano Obregón in the first and sixth chukkas.
Julio Arellano coached Daily Racing Form. The U.S. Polo Association called it the upset of the season, and it closes the Palm Beach high-goal season in style.
Sources: U.S. Polo Association, Town-Crier (Gold Cup)
