ASPEN, Colo., December 20, 2019—Flexjet led Royal Salute from start-to-finish to win the High Alpine Cup Thursday at Rio Grande Park.
Flexjet (Melissa Ganzi, 1, Alejandro Novillo Astrada, 8, Juan Bollini, 6), leading 6-1 at the half, held on for a 9-7 victory over Royal Salute (Pierre Henri Ngoumou, 6, Malcolm Borwick, 6, Horacio Heguy, 6).
Richard Mille won the Celebrity Chukker knocking off St. Regis. In front of a VIP crowd including Australian actress Rebel Wilson, Richard Mille (Sterling Jones, Gary Magness, Pablo MacDonough) defeated St. Regis (Nacho Figueras, Hilario Figueras, Saye Yabandeh, 4-3. For the third year in a row, Jones was leading scorer with two goals. The remaining five players each had one goal.
After competing in qualifying round robins Wednesday at Aspen Valley Polo Club’s world-class indoor arena, it was the first day teams got the chance to compete on snow.
Flexjet, a 15-goal rated team, started off with a 3-0 advantage on handicap over 18-goal Royal Salute.
Ganzi’s three goals in the first two chukkers enabled Flexjet to take a 6-1 lead. Royal Salute was unable to score until the 3:30 mark in the second chukker when Ngoumou’s long pass found Borwick open for an easy tap-in.
Royal Salute started digging itself out of the hole in the third chukker scoring three goals in the final four minutes. Ngoumou scored two goals and Borwick added one.