Prize discovery

Searching the attic of the Hurlingham Club in Buenos Aires prior to a champions’ lunch led to a significant find, writes Pepe Santamarina, the club’s head of polo

In 2011, the Hurlingham Club in west Buenos Aires organised a lunch in honour of the winners of the Hurlingham Open tournament during the Sixties and Seventies. This year, a few weeks before the final between La Dolfina and Ellerstina, the club began to plan the same celebration for polo champions of the Eighties and Nineties, who included gifted players such as Juan Carlos Harriott Jr.

Before the event, I told the multiple champion of the Coronel Suárez team, Alberto Pedro Heguy, ‘This year I’m going to surprise you. That’s a promise.’ My plan was to organise the tennis and golf trophies that had ended up in the chaos of the club’s attic. I really wasn’t hoping for anything special – perhaps, at most, to find some old photos that would surprise Colonel Suárez and his contemporaries at the celebratory lunch. But the surprise was bigger. Much bigger.

The attic was in a state of total chaos. As I began to arrange its contents bit by bit, I stumbled across a trophy displaying a picture of an old polo game. Examining it more closely, I came upon something unexpected: the words ‘River Plate Polo Association’ – the sport’s first governing body, founded in 1892. On its side were engraved the names of the four winners of the tournament of October 1893: Francisco J Balfour, Frank Furber, CJ Tetley and Hugo Scott-Robson – the founding members of the Hurlingham Club.

The 1-0 victory was against North Santa Fe, in Cañada de Gómez. As Francisco J Balfour wrote in his memoirs, that sole goal allowed the Hurlingham Club to label itself ‘the first Copa del Campeonato’. The goal was scored by Juan Ravenscroft – who’d replaced an injured Hugo Scott-Robson – during an additional chukka.

I realised then that it was the original cup – the one from the very first Open! Something that we expected to throw away during our search turned out to be the most valuable thing we came across.

The cup is small, not reaching even half the size of the current orejona, which, just last year, was lifted by Adolfo Cambiaso, David Stirling, Pablo MacDonough and Juan Martín Nero, the victors with La Dolfina. Its fortunes were mixed, however, as, from 1965, humble and silent, it was used as the trophy for an internal tournament within the Hurlingham and changed its name to Lady Nomination.

Rescued from the dark attic, it was the guest of honour at the lunch attended by the grand masters of polo seen smiling in the photo on this page. It’s hard to believe that four gringos winning a tiny cup turned out to be such a monumental event in the history of polo.

While the 119th Argentine Open is played, polo has discovered a charming story from its past. And, as a prize, it has gained a new trophy.