Jonny Good playing for HPA at the Coronation Cup 2008
Jonny Good
This is not my first time to Argentina, but I´ve only been here for three or four weeks at a time before. This time I arrived here on 6th October, and I’m leaving after the Open final. Luckily I’ve been working with Pite Merlos’ second string of horses. I´ve been playing pretty much every day. I´ve been playing 15 & 16 goal level with Roddy Williams and Guillermo Cuitino. I’ve been playing the Provincia de Buenos Aires Cup, which is a 23 goals tournament. I played the Provincia with Tom Morley, Malcolm Borwick and James Beim. The difference between this level
of polo and in England is that here in Argentina you have four evenly handicapped players. They don’t have patrons playing in the Provincia, in the 23 goals level. Another difference between here and England is that here you play for yourselves and in England you play for a living, it’s a job, and you’re under pressure all the time. Here it’s four man polo, it’s fast and it’s more competitive. Here I had time to play practices. In England I don’t because I play many levels at the same time. By that I mean that I play matches all the time. When you play practices most days with 33
people like Marcos Heguy, Pite or Sebastian Merlos, those 9-10 goals players, you improve a lot, you learn everyday. The game flows better here. Everytime you’re on the field playing practices, you’re improving your play, your horses, your tactics. About Palermo, when you walk up the steps and turn around you see what a huge event it is. You see how fast the play is, the fantastic atmosphere. You should see the league matches, and not just the final. To win Palermo you need a whole team, not just one star player. You also need the backup – the manager, the group, the trainers.