An Idiot’s Guide to Polo

Buenos Aires in December: the Christmas lights are flashing all over the city and Mariah Carey is blasting out what she wants for Christmas in Farmacity as you take refuge from the sweltering heat. Although the shops want you to think about the Christmas season, I urge you to consider the polo season.

The Argentine polo season started in October and will soon come to a head with the final of the Palermo Cup, which will take place on 10th and 11th December. Argentina is internationally recognised as the polo mecca, with the Palermo Cup being considered the World Cup of polo.

Sounds good so far, but how on earth does one get involved and, surely, it’s rather expensive? In fact, the cheapest ticket will set you back a mere $30.

Once you are there, you may well wonder what on earth is going on. There is a lot more to polo than handsome men, pretty ponies and sticks. Fear not, for here is your printable Idiot’s Guide to polo.

Background to the Palermo Cup

The Palermo Cup is one of three main cups in the Argentine open: Tortugas is the first (played in October and won by Ellerstina Team in 2010) then the Hurlingham (Ellerstina won again) and finally Palermo, where Ellerstina hope to win again. If a team wins all three of the opens, it wins the ‘Triple Corona’, the ultimate achievement. This year, Ellerstina is hoping to take Triple Corona off the La Aguada brothers who have been defending it since 2003.

The six teams with the highest handicap automatically participate. All other teams interested in playing with a handicap of over 28 goals play matches to qualify. The two winning teams qualify to play against the other six.

This weekend the lineup is as follows:

Saturday 4th December: 2pm: Chapa Uno vs. Sao José; 4.30pm: La Dolfina vs. Pilará

Sunday 5th December: 2pm Alegría vs. Chapalefú II; 4.30pm Ellerstina vs. La Aguada

The winners of the 4.30pm matches will go on to play each other in the final of the Palermo Cup on the weekend of 10th December.

What the chukker? The 10 basic rules of Polo

1. Each team is made up of four players: Number 1 attacks, getting most of the passes and scoring the most goals. Number 2 does a large amount of the hard work, acting as a midfielder. Number 3 hangs back a bit and tends to organise the team. Number 4 is defensive.

2. Each player has been awarded a handicap by the Argentine Polo Association. This can range from 0 to 10 (in Argentina). The lowest handicap at Palermo this year is a 7. There are only 12 players with a 10 in Argentina.

3. The match is divided into eight parts, each part is called a ‘chukker.’ Each chukker lasts seven minutes, there are three minute breaks between each one, signalled by a horn. In this time the players can change their horses. Half time is after the 4th chuckker. This is a five-minute break after it. If a score is tied, play goes into overtime. ‘Sudden death’ is placed to decide the winner by a ‘Golden Goal.’

4.Each player will have ten or so horses which he will use throughout the match. He can change his horse between chukkers, or during the chukker, but play will not stop for him. This means that you may hear a horse’s name being shouted, then see one of the grooms (petiseros) rush over to the sideline to swap the horses over. Horses are swapped when they are tired, or as a strategic move if the player sees his opponent change onto a faster steed. The teams research their opponents’ horses so they can plan their game accordingly. There is no cap on the number of horses the player can use.

5. There are two referees (often ex-pros) who ride alongside the players. They wear black and white stripy shirts. An umpire sits in the stand at the halfway line.

6. Fouls are penalised with penalty shots. These may be hit from 30, 40 or 60 yards midfield or from the point of the infraction. The umpire chooses the position of the penalty shot, according to the severity of the foul. There was some controversy on the introduction of certain new rules in 2009. Now, ‘verbal excess’ will be treated as, at the least a technical foul and a penalty will be rewarded accordingly.

7. The stick used to hit the ball is called a ‘mallet’. The player cannot hold it with his left hand. A player can use his mallet to hook the opponent’s mallet, but the hooking swing cannot be above the shoulder line, nor from the opposite side where the swing is being made.

8. The flagmen stand behind the goal line and will wave a flag overhead to signal a goal has been scored.

9. After a goal has been scored, the polo team changes direction.

10. The team which scores the most goals wins the match. A goal is scored when the polo ball crosses the line between the goal posts or its extension.

The best Argentine polo players.

Adolfo Cambiaso: With a handicap of ten, and as the number one player in the world, Cambiaso is known as the Messi of polo. Age 12 he already had a 1 goal handicap and played for the first time in the Argentine Open at Palermo in 1992 when he was 17. In his first game against the Indios he scored 16 goals, setting the record for number of goals scored by one player in an Argentine Open game. In 1994 he won the Triple Corona with Ellerstina, becoming the youngest player in history to achieve a handicap of 10 goals; he was only 19. He co-founded his own team, La Dolfina, in 1997, the same year he was awarded the best player in the Argentine Open final scoring a record of 67 goals, the highest number recorded in the history of the Argentine Open. He also has his own breed.

Facundo Pieres: Currently number two player in Argentina at the age of 23, with a handicap of 10. He was promoted to a 10 goal handicap at the age of 19, beating Cambiaso’s record. From a polo family, he is the son of famous Gonzalo Pieres Sr., and some say he may overtake Cambiaso as he grows older and more experienced. A player for Ellerstina, he is touted as the one to watch.

Juan Martín Nero: Also with a handicap of 10, he plays alongside the Pieres brothers in the Ellerstina team. He played polo with his father and grandfather as a child, but is not from one of the polo families with breeding programmes and strings of horses. Since joining Ellerstina in 2008 he has proved himself to be a key player in the opens which followed.

The Teams

Ellerstina: Total Handicap: 40. Facundo Pieres (10), Gonzalo Pieres (10), Pablo MacDonough (10), Juan Martín Nero (10). Key Info: Facundo Pieres, Gonzalo Pieres and Pablo MacDonough: Won the Argentine Open in 2008, The Hurlingham Open in 2005, 2007 and 2009 and Tortugas in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Nero has been successful in other teams too, but played in most of the tournaments listed above.

La Aguada: Total Handicap: 37. Javier Novillo Astrada (9), Eduardo Novillo Astrada (9), Miguel Novillo Astrada (10) and Ignacio Novillo Astrada (9). Key Info: This is a team made up of 4 brothers. They won the Triple Corona in 2003 and have been defending it ever since.

La Dolfina: Total Handicap: 39. Adolfo Cambiaso (10), Lucas Monteverde (10), David Stirling (9), Bartolome Castagnola (10). Key Info: La Dolfina’s successes: The Hurlingham Open (2001, 2002 & 2006), The Argentina Open at Palermo (2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 & 2009). 1997 he won El Olimpia de Plata which is awarded to the most accomplished polo player in Argentina. That year he was also awarded the best player in the Argentine Open final scoring a record of 67 goals, the highest number recorded in the history of the Argentine Open.