Polo Players Edition

JAN 2011

Polo Players' Edition is the official publication of the U.S. Polo Association. Dedicated to the sport of polo, it features player profiles, game strategy, horse care, playing tips, polo club news and tournament results.

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POL O TICS BY CHRIS ASHTON DIFFERENT ERA For the Harriot brothers, the past is another country T hose of us in love with the English language, among whom I count myself, are indebted to English author L.P. Hartley for the celebrated opening sentence of his 1953 novel, The Go- Between: “The past is another country; they do things differently there.” Hartley’s aphorism came to mind as I read an interview with Juan Carlos Harriot in the Yearbook of the Argentine Polo Pony Breeders Association, founded 27 years ago to promote the breed, Polo Argentino, now bred by some 600 registered studs. The interview with Juan Carlos Harriott Jr., known in the Argentine polo community as Juancarlitos, recalled for me my own interview with his younger brother, Alfredo, published by Polo Times (UK). Complementing one another, their reflections on how polo was played when they were at their peak, and how it has changed, underline the truth of Hartley’s lucid oft-quoted distinction between past and present. Mindful that the younger readers of POLO Players’ Edition may be unversed in Argentine polo history before the advent of patrons and professionals, let me briefly digress to the golden age of the amateur game during which the Harriott name burned brightly. Juancarlitos and Alfredo were polo protégés of the Coronel Suarez Club, an adjunct of a market town more than 300 miles from Buenos Aires at the southwestern extremity of the Pampas. Founded in 1929, from the late 1950s until the early 1980s, the club dominated Argentine polo as no other club had done nor in all likelihood, will ever do so again. 16 POLO PLAYERS EDITION Juancarlitos, born in 1936, and Alfredo, born in 1945, were the beneficiaries of such stellar mentors as Enrique Alberdi, a senior club member during their induction to the game; successive generations of the Heguy family; and above all, their father, Juan Carlos Harriott Sr., a 9-goaler at his peak. The elder Harriot won nine Argentine Opens with Coronel Suarez, between 1952-61, and his brother Eduardo who, between them, provided the boys with horses bred for polo. Horacio and Alberto Pedro, boasted a 40- goal handicap, at the time the only one in the world. In Profiles in Polo: The Players Who Changed the Game (McFarland & Co., 2008), Horacio Laffaye, editor and contributing author, credits Juancarlitos as pivotal to Coronel Suarez’ success, reflecting his skills as a player, strategist, captain and for the example he set in his determination to play at full throttle from start to finish, as far as he could, keeping his opponents on the defense. In 1976 he was honored with the Golden Olimpia Award for the Most Outstanding Sportsman in Argentina. Other 20th century recipients included soccer’s Diego Maradona, car racing’s Juan Manuel Fangio and tennis stars Gabriele Sabatini and Guillermo Vilas. “Self-effacing, quiet, polite Coronel Suarez, with Juancarlitos Harriot, Alfredo Harriot, Horacio Heguy and Alberto Heguy, was a 40-goal team for five consecutive years. During his captaincy of Coronel Suarez between 1961-80, and playing in various combinations, including his brother Alfredo, Juancarlitos, with a 10-goal handicap, won the Argentine Open 20 times, coupled with countless other trophies at home and abroad including, as the Argentine team, the Cup of the Americas in four successive bouts with the United States. For five consecutive years, the Coronel Suarez team, comprising the Harriott brothers and the Heguy brothers, almost to a fault, Harriott enjoyed practice games more than did most players,” wrote Laffaye. “On the field, he was all business, with no smiles. A gentleman, he never injured a player.” Laffaye reminds us that Juancarlitos’ polo career was played entirely within “the age of the amateur … the central component of this code was the ideal of playing sports for fun …” [including] “… other aspects such as fair play, voluntary adherence to rules, and non-pecuniary rewards.” As to the genesis of the stable of polo ponies he and Alfredo developed for their own careers, Juancarlitos told the Argentine Polo Pony Breeders Association Yearbook: “The origin of our breed goes back to when my father and his brother Eduardo, who was a very ordinary player NICOLAS LEVIN

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