North America

TRIPLE ACTION AT JOE BARRY CUP SUNDAY POLO IN PALM BEACH Villa Del Lago and Orchard Hill remain unbeaten, Flight Options wins debut

SOUTH HAMILTON — Note to aspiring sportswriters: When your editor casually asks if you can ride a horse, think before you answer. Caught off-guard by the question, I blurted out, “Yeah, I can ride.” Technically it was true, though it had been more than 20 years since I’d gone horseback riding.

Lucchese (John Muse, Andres Weisz, Magoo Laprida and Nico Pieres)and CT Energia (Alessandro Bazzoni, Kris Kampsen, Joao Paulo Ganon and Nick Manifold) battled to a 6-6 halftime tie before Lucchese edged their way into the lead and a 13-11 win as competition continued in the 2015 Joe Barry Memorial Cup at the International Polo Club Saturday morning.

First of all it is raining first time in 5 years we have had 5 inches since Halloween I know one afternoon in Houston but it is big here, we have several new board members we have a new president and we have noto change some Polo but it should be good polo and maybe we get to see some more Americans on the field .

Carlucho Arellano showed streaks of greatness Friday afternoon as he scored nine goals in leading Travieso (Lucas Arellano, Teo Calle, Juancito Bollini and Carlucho Arellano) to a 13-10 win over Odosan (Joe Chai, Ricky Mershad, Juan Redlich and Joaquín Panelo) in the opening game of the 2015 8-goal Aspen Valley Cup at the Grand Champions Polo Club Friday afternoon.

The new-look Orchard Hill polo team (Steve Van Andel, Lucas Criado, Facundo Pieres and Remy Muller) scored their first win of the 20-goal season in a Thursday morning contest with Coca-Cola (Gillian Johnston, Sugar Erskine,

In December 2014, Travel + Leisure magazine listed Haiti as one of the "Best Places to Travel in 2015." Wow! That really made my day. I forwarded the link to a bunch of people I know, while trying very hard not to pepper my note with multiple exclamation points.

Villa Del Lago (Jim Zenni, Agustin Obregon, Polito Pieres and Julian de Lusarreta) spotted Merchant Hub (Scott Swerdlin, Marianito Obregon, Facundo Obregon and Luis Escobar) one goal by handicap before routing them 18-10 in their 20-goal debut in Joe Barry Memorial Cup play at the International Polo Club Wednesday afternoon.

Traditional polo, which is played on a ten-acre grass field, has become ridiculously expensive at many clubs around the country. The bottom line is that the annual maintenance cost of a single grass field is anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000, and most clubs have several grass fields. Taking these maintenance costs together with the salaries of club employees into account, it doesn’t take long to realize that the membership fees at most clubs have to be set extremely high just to break even (unless these costs are heavily subsidized by the club’s owners).

Miguel Astrada turned in an amazing second half performance to give Casablanca a 13 to 11 win over Villa del Lago in the season opener Pennell Cup. It appeared that Polito Pieres was going to be hard to stop after his Villa del Lago team ran up a 9 to 5 half time lead. Astrada and Nic Roldan put together a second half rally that turned things around quickly. Astrada will named MVP and his horse Paulina was the Best Playing Pony.