The English high-goal season has its first big winner. At the weekend, at the Queen’s Ground at Guards Polo Club, the UAE Polo Team beat Scone Polo 10-6 in six chukkas to win the Cartier Queen’s Cup for the first time.
The winning side
The UAE Polo Team was HH Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Tomas Panelo, Polito Pieres and Tomas Beresford. Panelo was named Cartier Most Valuable Player, and Pieres’s 11-year-old chestnut mare JB Bleach took the Best Playing Pony award. The silver cup was presented to Sheikha Maitha by Laurent Feniou, Managing Director of Cartier UK.
Both finalists were rated at 22 goals. The UAE Polo Team’s handicaps ran from Sheikha Maitha at zero through Panelo (6), Beresford (7) and Pieres (9), while Scone had Paradice at zero, Cambiaso Jnr and Strada at 6 each, and Adolfo Cambiaso at 10.
Favourites beaten
Scone Polo, owned by David Paradice, were the favourites. They fielded Adolfo Cambiaso, the top-ranked player in the world, alongside his 15-year-old son and Isidro Strada. Fifteen teams had entered the tournament, so the final was the end of a busy fortnight, and the UAE side came through it to beat the strongest line-up on the field.
The subsidiary final
In the subsidiary final, Park Place beat King Power 12-9, even though they were without their injured patron, Andrey Borodin. Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, King Power’s patron, was named that match’s MVP.
Why it matters
The Queen’s Cup has been a Cartier event since 2012, and it remains a highlight of the English polo diary. This year it is also a welcome sign that the English season is properly under way.
We will be watching how the UAE Polo Team carry this form into the Gold Cup for the British Open, which started at Cowdray Park on 29 June. They now have the confidence of a first Queen’s Cup, and every other team in the draw will have noted how they handled a final against Cambiaso.
Sources: Polo+10
