The Land Rover Arena Polo Masters took place on Friday 13th February at the home of arena polo, The Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. The game was the highest goal arena polo game ever played, sponsored by Guy Salmon Land Rover of Ascot. he two teams consisted of the finest Arena polo players in the world, with one team ‘Adventure’ comprising of the main body of the 2015 St Moritz Snow Polo World Cup winning team. The other team ‘Embrace’ incorporated Roddy Williams, Johnny Good and Sebastian Dawnay. With ‘Arena Polo’ of this standard the audience was not put off by the ensuing rain and packed the stands fully embracing the Land Rover #Hibernot ethos.
The game commenced with a thrilling first chukka with each team throwing caution to the wind to try and gain an early advantage. With each team flat out and exploring to seek out any weakness in the other the first chukka ended in a 4 goal all draw. With the rain still coming down the crowd’s spirits weren’t dampened as they were enthralled by the terrific game on display. The second chukka commenced as the first had ended with a high speed end to end action keeping the crowd highly entertained. Again each team tried to gain an advantage but no quarter was given and at half time the score remained locked at 8 all.
The second half was again a close fought affair, with little to choose between these two top class teams. With the impetus of the game moving backward and forward throughout the second half each team desperately fought to gain the upper hand. In the fourth and final chukka team ‘Adventure’ finally made the decisive breakthrough with a run of top class goals to defeat team ‘Embrace’ with a brilliant final chukka performance, which had the crowd glued to the action.
The Land Rover Cup was presented by Alan Davis, head of business, at Guy Salmon Ascot to the victorious team ‘Adventure’. The Best Playing Pony was Lilly who was played by Johnny Good and owned by Olivia Lamphee; the groom was Jim Smith. The award for Most Valuable Player was our own chairman Jamie Morrison, who wins a Range Rover vehicle for the weekend kindly provided by our sponsor.
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