August 2021 Polo Players' Edition- The Argentine Team: Part 2

By Dennis J. Amato

In 1930, an Argentine team made a memorable trip to the United States to play in a series of matches in California, including the Pacific Coast Open Championship. However, they also made a short, last-minute courtesy trip to New York where they even tried their hand at indoor polo. Last month, I recounted the California leg of their famous visit and in this Part II, the story of their fascinating but largely forgotten New York stopover is told.

With the passage of time, one of the fascinating but largely overlooked segments of the Argentines’ 1930 American trip was that their memorable extended visit to California was followed by a now largely forgotten short stay in New York. The contingent from the Pampas that came east was apparently limited to the players, Manuel Andrada, Alfredo Harrington, Juan Reynal, José Reynal and Carlos Uranga, along with their families.

The team made the long cross-country trek by train and arrived in the Big Apple in early April. Undoubtedly, they came east at the express invitation of the USPA. According to Polo magazine in its May 1930 issue, the Santa Paula team “saw all there was to see of New York polo with the exception of Thomas Hitchcock Jr., the International Captain. ‘And we had heard so much about him’ said the English-speaking member of the group when asked to imagine a twelve-goal player ‘that we almost know what he is like.’” Unfortunately, the American super star was still in Aiken competing in a tournament.

At the renowned Meadow Brook Club in Westbury, Long Island, the Argentines were given the red-carpet treatment in a tour led by none other than Devereux Milburn who was joined by other polo stalwarts. As the official polo season was still some time off, the visitors were not able to either practice or to engage in any games at the Club at this juncture but reiterated their promise to return the following year to compete in the U.S. Open Championship.

The USPA also hosted a gala dinner in New York for the out-of-towners. In addition to Louis Stoddard, USPA chairman, some of the other polo luminaries who attended were Milburn, Winston Guest, Stewart Iglehart, Earl Hopping and J. Watson Webb.

Although outdoor polo was not possible, the Argentines were brought to Squadron A to witness, merely out of curiosity for the first time in their lives, indoor polo. Surprisingly, the visitors were so

intrigued by the contests that Saturday evening, April 5, that they then asked the Indoor Polo Association if they could try their hand at the game! Needless to say, the IPA willingly obliged and did the Argentines one better by orchestrating a special informal exhibition match up before the Wednesday evening finals for the Association’s Class A and Class B Championships.

The Argentines would play at the 8 p.m. opening on April 9 prior to the official games. The special event generated so much excitement that the game affords them that chance.”

Ironically, it was this exhibition game that generated the most excitement as the two official matches were pretty much foregone conclusions. As expected, Winston Guest’s Optimists demolished their opponent, Yale University, for the Class A trophy by a lopsided score of 13-6 despite conceding five goals on handicap (13-1 on the flat). Guest alone managed to score nine goals in what turned out to be a virtual teaching clinic. Moreover, his team achieved the astonishing distinction of an undefeated season.

Madison Avenue armory attracted some 3000 fans that night. As the famous sportswriter and polo aficionado Robert F. Kelley wrote in The New York Times “the largest crowd of the season jammed every corner of the armory.” He accurately anticipated the pent-up enthusiasm for the upcoming encounter in a column he wrote prior to the game itself: “The exhibition of the South Americans, despite the fact they are green at the indoor game and cannot be expected to turn in a really fast game, has aroused considerable interest. Polo followers here in the east have heard of the fine play of these players in winning the California open title, but there has been no opportunity to see them in action.

In a later recap of indoor play in the 1929-30 cycle, Kelley in the May issue of The Sportsman, was to remark rather glibly: “In the outdoor game there is Mr. Thomas Hitchcock Jr., who sometimes plays at least twelve-goal polo, and indoors, there is exactly the same situation with Mr. Guest. The problem then seems to be what to do with the rest of the field.”

Similarly, in the second official game that evening, the Brooklyn Riding & Driving Club routed its opponent, the New York Athletic Club 11-6½ to retain the Class B championship for the third consecutive year.

Thus, in a case where the appetizer was perhaps better than the entrée, the warm-up game featuring the Argentine trio of Alfredo Harrington (1); José Reynal (2); Manuel Andrada (Back) proved to be the main attraction that Saturday night. Their opponent was the worthy Eastcott team comprised of Earle W. Hopping (1); his son, Earle A.S. Hopping (2); and A. Charles Schwartz (Back), who was also a member of the USPA’s defense committee.

There was likely no team less prepared to take to the tanbark that Saturday evening at Squadron A than the Argentine one. Without the benefit of practice, let alone any actual play and mounted on horses loaned to them as well as probably utilizing borrowed kit and gear (e.g. helmets, boots, pants, shirts, belts, whips, mallets, etc.), the threesome from BA had as much of a competitive disadvantage entering the cavernous New York arena (190 feet x 300 feet) as an unarmed Roman gladiator of old going into the Coliseum.

Although the contest was heavily promoted as a friendly exhibition game, it had all the hallmarks of a regular indoor contest and was fiercely fought. The match consisted of the standard four periods, although it seems that they were a bit shorter than the regulation ones of 7½ minutes. There was also a referee and fouls were actually called. Clearly, the tension and the adrenaline must have been as palpable as any major engagement ever held at Squadron A.

Furthermore, the game had important historical significance as it was the first major international competition since an English team came to America in 1923 to do battle for the John R. Townsend Challenge Cup (see Polo, April 1994). As an aside, an

interesting tidbit was reported in the 1923 Indoor Polo Tournament program regarding at least two planned international matches that for one unexplained reason or another never materialized: “… the English have challenged for another try at the John R. Townsend International In-door Polo Challenge Cup for next spring [1924] … In-door polo has been played a great deal in France, and a challenge for the same cup from a French team has been accepted for the spring of 1925.”

Predictably, in the first period of the 1930 Argentine-Eastcott duel, the American squad got off to a strong start as the Hoppings managed to score two goals. Santa Paula seemed a bit disoriented and off-balance in this totally new polo environment and found itself in the unusual position of not being in control of the pace and the play of the game. However, in the second period, the Argentines were able to adapt somewhat to the rhythm of the game so much so that Harrington, Reynal and Andrada all managed to put points on the board. As Kelley noted in The Times, “they [the Argentines] led the Americans at the end of the first half,” which was a remarkable achievement by any measurement.

In the second half though, Eastcott dominated with the Hoppings scoring four goals against none by their opponents. However, in the final period, both Schwartz and Reynal were penalized by fouls, which cost each side half a point. The final score was therefore 5½-2½. Notably, the Argentines proved to be more competitive than either Yale and the NYAC in their matches which followed.

Here was truly a case where experience and familiarity with the indoor format prevailed over innate polo skills. Kelley aptly summarized the evening’s event in his column the next morning in The Times: “In strange surroundings and on borrowed ponies, the visitors did not turn in as fast an exhibition as the stars who played later, but they showed spots of fine hitting and riding and made it certain that, with practice, they would be able to ride with the best indoors as well as outdoors.”

In one of two substantial postmortem articles on the exhibition match in the May issue of Polo y Equitacion, their polo correspondent attempted to explain the seemingly odd peculiarities of the indoor game in general and the Squadron A contest in

particular to the magazine’s curious readers back home through Argentine eyes—and with an evident level of frustration: “One needs to fully understand the strategy of ‘indoor polo’ which is played on a much smaller field with an inflated ball instead of a typical polo ball. These elements reduce the player’s visibility and therefore make it very difficult to attain good ball placement, thus undermining the accuracy of the hit. These various factors made the Argentines perform as if they were disorganized and weak, hitting therefore with great difficulty without being able to position themselves properly to coordinate their forward movement.”

In the second article on the game, this magazine published in Buenos Aires provided more details on the match as well as corroboration of Kelley’s analysis above with commentary from two other New York newspapers: The Sun and The World. In the former paper came the following: “From the outset one could see that they [the Argentines] found themselves out of the game and they were not able to acclimate themselves and rebound the inflated ball against the wall more or less during the entire match. It was quite painful to watch their outstanding back, Andrada, executing turns with supreme elegance and force, to err so sadly as a novice in the sport. However, it was evident during the short exhibition match that there were many opportunities to appreciate the unsurpassed form of the visiting team, their intuitive tactical skills and their superb teamwork which they had developed as they made clearly visible their championship traits under the most adverse circumstances they found themselves in.”

A few days later, The Sun further added: “The Argentines have achieved a justified worldwide fame as polo players but not in the indoor game since they only have played outdoors. Naturally, during the last match, they found it difficult to control the inflated ball in a small arena. There were also thousands of details that most spectators missed which obviously bothered the Argentine players and did not allow them to compete up to their capabilities. However, this being said, from the form they showed in their drive in the final chukker, they demonstrated that it would not take much to adapt themselves to this type of game. If they had the opportunities to play frequently, they would become champions of the indoor game as they are in the outdoor one.”

The World, in referring to the Argentine team, echoed very similar sentiments. While highlighting the various problems the players would need to overcome to become expert indoor contenders, the chronicler nevertheless concluded that despite their loss, they had turned in a “brilliant performance.”

From all the accounts that I have come across, Manuel Andrada stood out among his teammates as the player who dazzled the crowd the most at Squadron A with his showmanship and his skills. Although he was not yet adept as an indoorsman, his marvelous polo panache and personal charisma were akin to a famous opera singer like Pavarotti attempting a new but related genre such as pop music.

Given the press coverage of the important April 9 series of games, certainly photographs of the Argentine-Eastcott competition must exist. Regrettably though to date, none has been found but over time, such images are likely to surface.

Three days later, after this landmark encounter at Squadron A, the Argentines sailed back to Buenos Aires on the Southern Prince after a highly successful American tour filled with triumphs, tributes, trophies and tons of goodwill. They arrived back in Buenos Aires on April 29, 1930 after being away for over four months.

It was hoped that this first indoor competition with the visitors from South America might lead to the development of the indoor game at home as well as serve as a catalyst for further international competition. As Kelley wrote in The Times: “Soon after the war [World War I], the United States played and defeated England in an indoor international. For the past several years, correspondence has passed between this country and Argentina looking toward indoor as well as outdoor international matches. Tomorrow night’s game [April 9, 1930] may serve as the forerunner for a regular series in future years.” But alas, unfortunately, such an expectation never materialized.