Report Steppes Gerald Balding Cup
Raging bulls contest power of the Gods
Edward Foster and Lucy Eaves watch Minatours and Neptune re-enact an ancient Greek battle on the turf at Cirencester Park’s Ivy Lodge
posthumous lifetime achievement honour at the Audi Polo Awards this spring. Second, it’s the cup’s 50th birthday. Sponsored by luxury adventure travel firm Steppes Travel, this title was part of the Julius Baer Victor Ludorum series, and entries were up six on last year to 16. After nearly three weeks of preliminaries and knockouts, the finalists were Paolo Garavelli’s Minatours and Creighton Boyd and Patrick Heffron’s Neptune. The game began slowly but warmed up after Boyd and Tommy Morgan of Neptune scored two quick goals. The second chukka saw Minatours fighting back with two goals from Dean Lines and one from Mark Baldwin, giving them a 3-2 lead at half-time.
T
he Gerald Balding Cup enjoyed a special year in 2010. First, the late Gerald Balding (see below), the last British player to have achieved a 10-goal handicap, received a
Whilst the players convened in gazebos for private discussion and sustenance, spectators flooded onto the Ivy Lodge ground to tread in. Steppes entertained a marquee overflowing with newly converted polo enthusiasts, providing an army of useful feet at half-time.
Just inside the third Neptune equalised, but Minatours crept ahead with Lines scoring his third goal to make it 5-4. In the final chukka Neptune equalised with minutes to go. Minatours then regained the lead with a text-book penalty by Henderson. In the dying seconds Neptune had a chance to equalise with a penalty, but Sorzana’s shot was intercepted and Minatours won 6-5. Garavelli described the win as “the competitive highlight of my polo career”. Neptune joint-patron Boyd, in the team’s first big eight-goal final, said: “We're thrilled to have got this far, but it was tough to lose by such a narrow margin.” Minatours received the magnificent trophy from
GERALD BALDING (pictured), who was born in 1903 the oldest of four brothers and two sisters, grew up near Melton Mowbray, Leics, and attended Haileybury School, writes Yolanda Carslaw. His father Bert, “a bit of a drinker”, according to family lore, was a “nagsman and horse coper” who also played polo, but the impetus behind Gerald’s game was his uncle Billy, a nine-goaler who invented the Balding girth and gag. Between the wars Gerald moved to the US to play professionally, followed by his brothers Ivor and Barney. All three married Americans. Gerald’s son Ian says: “They played at Meadow Brook on Long Island, where the world’s top polo took place before Argentina got going. My father’s great team was Greentree, with Peter Bostick, a famous amateur rider from an athletic, wealthy family, Tommy Hitchcock Jnr and Jock Whitney. He ran their ponies and organised the team, and they won everything.
“He played for the US as well as England, because they decided Greentree should play Argentina, but he played against America in the Westchester. He also spent two winters in India, and certainly played with the Maharaja of Jaipur.” Gerald married Eleanor Hoagland, from New Jersey, in 1935 and Toby and Ian were born soon before he rose to 10 goals in
48 July 2010
www.polotimes.co.uk
Ian Balding, racehorse trainer, younger son of Gerald Balding and father of TV and sports presenter Clare. Steppes Travel gave prizes of engraved hip flasks and umbrellas, and bottles of Chase liqueur to officials. F
Gerald Balding Cup; 11-30 May 2010; Cirencester Park Polo Club, Gloucestershire
Result: Minatours beat Neptune 6-5 Principal sponsor: Steppes Travel Handicap level: 4-8 goal Number of team entries: 16 Chukka scores (Minatours): 0-2; 3-2; 5-4; 6-5
RoR best playing pony sponsored by Lycetts: Avaris, a 10-year-old owned by Mark Baldwin Finalists:
Minatours (8): Paolo Garavelli 0; Mark Baldwin 1; Dean Lines 3; Michael Henderson 4 Neptune (8): Creighton Boyd 0; Patrick Heffron 0; Tommy Morgan 2; Bautista Sorzana 6
1939. The family came to the UK after the war, in which he served with the Lifeguards, and Gerald trained racehorses, at first in Westonbirt, Glos, then in Wiltshire. “Toby and I were his chief labourers from an early age, and Jock Whitney became his main owner – one of those lovely Americans who adored racing in England,” says Ian. Ian and Toby played polo as boys, once on a family team with Gerald and their aunt, Judy, who looked after Gerald’s ponies post-war. Ian once won a “most promising player” prize at Cirencester, but went into racing – extremely successfully – instead of polo. “I gave up much too young, and I’ve always regretted it,” says Ian. “If polo then was as it is now, I might have gone down the professional route.”
Gerald continued to play at Cirencester
despite breaking his right arm in the war. “He was a six and still played magnificently. His
patrons were Alastair Gibb and Col Billy Whitbread, and he was still captaining England in 1956, having first done so in 1936,” recalls Ian. “But our mum would always
say: ‘You should have seen him before the war!’” Sadly, Gerald died in 1957 of cancer, still in his prime. Ian adds: “It’s lovely to think he was the last 10-goaler, and it’s nice he should be inducted into the hall of fame.”
Photographs by Cristopher Fear and courtesy of Audi
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