It was the 60th anniversary of the Cartier Queen’s Cup, and the final was worth the wait. On Sunday 23 August, on the Queen’s Ground at Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park, Les Lions/Great Oaks beat Park Place 9-8 in sudden-death extra time to take the trophy.
A behind-closed-doors final
The tournament, which was moved from its original place in the calendar because of the pandemic, was played over about three weeks and without spectators. Polocam TV filmed every match, around 30 games in all, so that followers could still watch from home. Cartier’s usual hospitality, which is such a feature of the day, was also absent. It is a very different Queen’s Cup from the one we are used to, but the polo was good.
The match
The match was very tight. Will Harper levelled the score at 8-8 in the sixth chukka for Park Place, and the match went into a seventh, sudden-death period. It was Camilo Jeta Castagnola who scored the winning goal.
- Les Lions/Great Oaks (winners): Camilo Jeta Castagnola, Dillon Bacon, Bartolomé Castagnola Jr. and Santiago Laborde.
- Park Place (runners-up): Andrey Borodin, Will Harper, Gonzalo Pieres and Facundo Pieres, who received a goal on handicap.
- Cartier Most Valuable Player: Dillon Bacon.
A redemption story
Les Lions/Great Oaks, the team of Dillon Bacon, will be especially pleased with this result. A month earlier they had lost the Gold Cup final at Cowdray to Next Generation, and the Queen’s Cup gives them the major title that their form this summer deserved. Their performance in the tournament, built on fast team polo, was one of the real stories of the English season.
Park Place, who with Facundo Pieres and his brother Gonzalo have a very strong line-up, were beaten by a single goal. They have now reached a Queen’s Cup final for the third year in a row, having lost the 2018 and 2019 finals as well. Their day will come.
There was nothing normal about this tournament, but there was nothing wrong with the polo either. We hope the Queen’s Cup will be back in its familiar form next year, with the crowds, the pageantry and the hospitality.
Sources: POLO+10
