The Cartier Queen’s Cup is the summer’s first great test in English polo, and the 2019 edition ended with a result few predicted. On Sunday 16 June, at Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park, Scone Polo beat Park Place 9-5 to win the trophy on their first appearance in the tournament.
A first-time winner
Scone Polo is the team of Australian patron David Paradice. They lined up with two of England’s best, James Harper and England captain James Beim, along with the Argentine Nico Pieres. A late entry, they were treated by many as the underdogs, yet they played the fast, hard game that the final demanded and won it with something in hand.
Park Place, backed by Andrey Borodin, were runners-up for the second year running. It was a difficult afternoon for them, but it also showed how tightly packed the top of English polo has become.
- Final: Scone Polo 9, Park Place 5.
- Entries: twelve teams took part, playing between 21 May and 16 June.
- Subsidiary final: Talandracas beat La Bamba de Areco 11-8 in the Cartier Trophy.
A tournament with history
The Queen’s Cup is a fixture of the social calendar, and its final has traditionally been played in the presence of the Queen. Behind the pageantry, though, is a serious high-goal tournament. A team has to survive a group stage and then a knockout, facing one high-goal side after another. That a first-time entrant could do it is a credit to the team’s preparation.
Scone Polo’s success also fits a pattern. Teams that have recruited good English professionals alongside an Argentine star have done well in recent seasons, and the balance of Harper and Beim’s local knowledge with Pieres’s speed was clearly a formula that worked.
What comes next
The Queen’s Cup is followed at Guards by the Royal Windsor Cup, and then the focus moves to Cowdray Park for the Gold Cup in July. It is a crowded fortnight, and plenty of the teams that missed out here will be hungry for a chance to make amends.
We think this was a great final for neutrals. A new name on the trophy always freshens the game, and Scone Polo have given the English season a lively start.
Sources: Scone Vet Dynasty, POLO+10
