Twenty teams entered The Gold Cup for the British Open in 2010. Two of the fourteen teams that had entered The Queen’s Cup did that tournament only. There were eight teams that just entered the Gold Cup in addition to the twelve that entered both tournaments. The teams were drawn into four leagues each of five teams, thus allowing for four matches at the league stage. The top eight teams qualified to continue in The Gold Cup. The subsidiary finals were played for The Ashton Silver Cup, The Jack Gannon Trophy and The Tatham Cup. A grand total of 50 matches! Chris Bethell and his team in the Cowdray Park Polo Club office
and the ground staff did a fantastic job to run the tournament which now is played over almost four weeks from the third week in June to the third Sunday in July. Only two teams won all four of their league matches, Lechuza Caracas and La Bamba de Areco. The remaining six quarter finalist teams had all won three matches, with a varying positive net goal difference. There was a little more variety in some of the scores than the normal one or two goal difference, which occurred in 16 out of the 40 league stage matches. The biggest league win was Enigma’s 17-7 over Cirencester Park Polo Club. Lechuza Caracas had a 12-5 win against
Agustin Merlos, Juan Martin Nero and Chris Mackenzie
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Talandracas. There were eight matches where there was a five goal difference in score between the winners and losers, six of which were against teams that only played in The Gold Cup – is there something to be learnt from that statistic?
Quarter final matches
Les Lions II v Lechuza Caracas The match was close, as you might expect at this stage of the tournament. The teams had a similar structure of players, with handicaps totaling 18 and 17 goals in their two best players and both had one goal patrons. They were tied at 3-3 after the first and 5-5 after the second chukka. Lechuza Caracas