Best Polo Player of All Time
There has been some interesting discussion about who is the best polo player of all time. Personally, I would have thought that Adolfo Cambiaso would be the obvious choice of almost everybody. But it is not so. Other very knowledgeable people have their own ideas of who is the best. Two other names have come up already, Juan Carlos Harriott of Argentina, who won no fewer than 20 Argentine Opens!, and Cecil Smith of Texas who was a 10-goal player for 25 years!. Personally I like all three of these great players, although in different ways. Perhaps we can learn something from each of them. But there is one who is my personal all-time favorite, and I will talk about him first. Please feel free to post your own personal favorites. Maybe we all can learn something.
GB
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sani Umar on -
Well, seems as if I am being sent off.
I hope I can still give my friend a right of reply :D.
"it would seem that your "mysterious friend" has drawn heat not only from GB but from David, as well.
Although I can agree on numerous of his points, he makes some specious arguements which he can never back up with facts.
I think that Sani’s mysterious friend has a unilateral view and gives very little room for other views. It is a known fact that the Polo played in the Open today and even at the level of other 20 goal tournaments such as the US Open in the US or the Gold Cup in the UK are far more competitive than in the 60s and 70s.
No, it is not a "known fact." Pure opinion. Since we have to rely on opinion, why can't we value the opinion of Alberto Pedro Heguy? Afterall, I would think that his opinion would be more perspicacious than that of the discussion's participants, in that Heguy played in the 60s and 70s AND has played and coached (and fathered) some of the greatest of today's stars. To requote Heguy correctly regarding Harriott vs Cambiaso, he said,
"¿Quién fue el mejor de todos los tiempos? -Como jugador de equipo, Juan Carlos Harriott (h.); individualmente, sin dudas Adolfo Cambiaso. Uno contra uno lo mata Adolfito, cuatro contra cuatro ganaría Juancarlitos."
Source: http://buscar.lanacion.com.ar/%27Alberto%20Pedro%27
Reasons:
The horses are better. The top players have better strings, the number of top horses in a string are far greater than the 1-2-3 top horses of a top high goal player in the 70s.
The game has become more of industry with training, techniques, horse feed, breaking in etc at higher standards.
If this were true, and not just blind supposition, don't you think the same would be true in horse racing, a sport that devotes far more financial backing to improve bloodlines and achieving high results?
The fact is that, with all the training methods, doping, medication, feed, vet practices and so on, not much has changed In the SPEED of the horses. Checking speed ercords, the 6 furlong record on grass was established in 1929. Look atthe following:
The world record on grass is
actually there are 2
Blink a 2 yr old gelding went in 1:06 1/5
but he did that on a downhill course at Brighton on 8/6/1929 while carring 123
the other being
Answer Do in 1:07 0/5 at Hollywood on 12/15/1990 at the age of 4 with 115 lbs
You can check all the world records at
http://thoroughbredchampions.com/library/worldrec.htm
The world record on dirt is held by
Twin Sparks in 106.49 Turf Paradise 2009
Source:http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Horse_hold_the_World_Record_for_6_fu...
Also, a number of Secretariat's speed records in 1973 have not been broken.
In a blog you can find the following:
04-29-2008, 08:36 PM
Has the tb reach his ultimate speed potential? With all the performance enhancing drug that we now have available the speed of the tb in 6f is maxed out at about 1:08 and has been for at least fifty years. We have not improved the breed much in this time frame by drugs,breeding and training. What is your opinion on this
Jack
Cangamble
04-29-2008, 08:43 PM
Has the tb reach his ultimate speed potential? With all the performance enhancing drug that we now have available the speed of the tb in 6f is maxed out at about 1:08 and has been for at least fifty years. We have not improved the breed much in this time frame by drugs,breeding and training. What is your opinion on this
Jack
Interesting observation. Probably the only difference is that more horses are able to achieve 1:10 or greater than 30-45 years ago.
Big Bill
04-30-2008, 09:10 AM
jasperson,
Sani: message to you mysterious friend: There was no Argentine dominance pre second world war. There were already some strong Argentine players. Pre-war polo was dominated by the Americans, The Indians, the English, and the military. At the most in the 1930s there were maybe 8 players a season from Argentina (Juan Nelson, Luis Lacey, The Trails, The Alberdis)…this is not dominance is this emergence.
David seems to ignore the Cup of the Americas, as well as the Olympics. Whereas America had taken over dominance from the British in 1910, as evidence by their repeated victories in the Westchester Cup series, the Argentines won at the Olympics repeatedly, and, at Meadowbrook, they beat the best Americans on their own soil to capture the Cup of the Americas. When Santa Paula toured in 1931, not only did they take the US Championship, but they did not lose to any team during their tour.
Also, those 8 Argentines could blow holes through the rest of the other world players! And they did not included the anta Paula team consisting of the two Reynal brothers. The grandson of one of the brothers told me that his grandfather was proud to claim that he had never lost to Tommy Hitchcock.
Frank Milburn, grandson of Devereau Milburn, and a noted sports journalist, seemed to think that the Argentines reigned supreme starting before World War II.
My question in the big wide open is that we should try to imagine what impact a no war situation would have had on the game…
That question has already been addressed, but I would conjecture that the rise in automotive technology has far more to do with the rest of the world abandoning polo, and horse sports altogether. Young men are more interested in cars. If you go to any stable in Europe or in the USA you will find girls, not boys. Whilethe girlsdot over their horses,the boys are trying figure out how to buy their first motorcycle or car. That is not the case in Argentina. In Argentina, only lately have the girls taken up polo in any larger way. The boys ride horses. Try to find a girl groom for polo in Argentina. Try to find a boy groom in the USA or in Europe."
Please note that this is a personal informal message between friends so do not mind the informality. Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by GB Polo on -
Okay, Sani. Glad you're sticking around, and thanks for that very long post. It is a bit difficult to tell whether it is you speaking or you are quoting your mysterious friend (or someone else) but there are a number of interesting points made.
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Permalink Reply by Sani Umar on
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I never said I was leaving. I put my friends remark in quotation marks. He also had an opinion on your remark that the 1936 Olympic match was the greates. I will post it under the remark for those who are not following the discussion to put it in context.
This is the liveliest discussion on pcw in recent times and I intend to stick around.
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Permalink Reply by mauricio sordelli on -
sani is on the road. continue there!!
best regards friends
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Permalink Reply by Aliyu Hassan Hadejia on -
I think u are going for skills u will go for Adolfo gambiaso cos he is a joy to watch
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Permalink Reply by GB Polo on
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The truth is that the best polo player of all time has not yet been born. Horses will get better. Athletes will get better. And most of all, competition will get better. Polo is the best substitute for war ever invented, and that makes it the most important sport in the history of the world. The best is yet to come.
GB
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Permalink Reply by Sani Umar on
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Polo - 100% Play And Picture! 1933
This clip on the pathe polo video collections posted by maltese cat, shows the match you referred to between west led by Cecil smith beat the east led by Hitchcock. Take a look
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Permalink Reply by GB Polo on
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Wow. Great find, Sani. Way to go!
Basically, I thought the polo was pretty good, and Cecil Smith did not disappoint, but what really impressed me was how many people showed up to watch the match!
Here's the clip:
POLO - 100% PLAY AND PICTURE!
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Permalink Reply by GB Polo on
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Apparently that match was quite remarkable for its intensity and competitiveness:
http://www.polomuseum.com/history_of_polo.htm
In 1933, the West rose up and successfully challenged the East's dominance of the sport in the first series of legendary East-West matches played near Chicago. Humorist Will Rogers remarked that Cecil Smith and his team threatened to "take the polo championship from the drawing room to the bunkhouse." The match was so competitive that both No. 3s, Cecil Smith and Tommy Hitchcock, were knocked unconscious but later returned to play, and the West's Rube Williams broke his leg in a ride-off.
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Permalink Reply by Gustavo Bilbao on -
All
In order to understand who is the best, you have to realise that polo in general has travelled a long, long way in the past 30 years alone.
In the past, most of these other players, would seat on the horse with little (or in most cases) not practice at all. They only relied on inborn/natural skills to stand out, and stand out they did as nobody was training for polo. Today professionalism is such these days that you no longer can rely on those inborn skills to stand out as professional players are training like never before, from mental preparation to physiotherapists on the field to massage them in between chukkers! You can put Carlos Harriot and any of the other names mentioned here on the high goal field today and they would be fairly average, so Adolfo Cambiaso is, without a doubt the best player ever, and followed by Facu Pieres, Gonzalo Pieres Jr., Juanma Nero...
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Permalink Reply by GB Polo on
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Thank you, Gustavo. I think we all would agree that the level of professionalism in polo is higher today than ever before, particularly in terms of the use of "scientific" methods such as visualization, slow-motion video analysis, and modern horse breeding and cloning techniques. But I think quite a few would disagree with the idea that the great players of the past did not work very hard to use whatever tools they had to perfect their game. Several have said that Juan Carlos Harriott was fanatical about preparation and training and would leave no stone unturned to improve his chances of winning, and of course his teams won the Argentine Open twenty times, far more than any other player. Cecil Smith, a 10-goaler for 25 years, learned to play polo by hitting rocks on a ranch in Texas, and went on to become one of the greatest hitters of all time. There is probably no one in this discussion who would disagree that, one on one, Adolfo Cambiaso is the greatest player in the history of the game. He is a phenomenal player, and if you love the game of polo, you cannot help being mesmerized to watch him play. As for the other great players of today, it would be interesting to see how they matched up with the great players of the past.
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Permalink Reply by Gustavo Bilbao on
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My point wasn't about training or techniques, it was factual about the level and demands of playing today versus during their times. It is a fact that the old boys didn't prepare nearly as much, nor they played nearly as many games during the year.
I had the pleasure of meeting Juan Carlos and be able to have a small chat about polo with him. He told me that today's players are better than yesterday's but that yesterday's polo was better than today's (to which I totally agree). He himself has made declarations for Buenos Aires Polo International magazine that both Cambiaso and Facu Pieres were better than him. If you look at videos you can see that the game during his days was composed of long hits and run. They weren't anywhere as talented at handling the stick, hitting the ball in the air, dribbling between opposing players in confined space.
Cambiaso plays in his own league and we all seem to agree on that one, but personal in my opinion Facu is better than him playing #1. I never seen him playing #4 (something that Cambiaso does with no problems).
Whilst those old names were great and did a tremendous amount for the sport we all love so much, I don't think they would compare with the guys playing today. I really hope Polo improves to the point when in 25 years time people are having the same discussions we are having today. That can only be positive for the sport.
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