It was another splendid day at Greenwich Polo Club June 30 as the Postage Stamp team – led by Annabelle Gundlach, whom we wrote about in April 2017 WAG— proved too much for Team Mt. Brilliant and advanced in the USPA Monty Waterbury Cup, 11-7. (The tournament was actually won by the Island House team on July 5.) Tomas Garcia del Rio was on fire for Postage Stamp, as was Michel Dorignac for Mt. Brilliant. But in the end, Postage Stamp’s Brandon Phillips, whom we wrote about in June 2016 WAG, was the MVP. Smirnoff, one of Del Rio’s horses, was named Best Playing Pony.
The day – which featured brilliant sunshine giving way to rain and wind, then back to sun in time for the match – got off on the right note with a refreshing Carpano Bianco Spritz with grapefruit soda at the new tasting Branca Bar at Greenwich Polo Club, located in the rustic CC & G Polo Pub under the grandstand. There was also Fernet Buck, a cocktail made with Fernet-Branca and ginger beer.
(We’ll have more on this and Edoardo Branca, the managing director of the new Branca USA, in August WAG’s “Sporting Fascination” issue.)
Then it was off to the “Urs Fischer: Error” exhibit at the onsite Brant Foundation Art Study Center, on view through October. (The center and the polo club are both the brainchildren of Peter Brant.) The work is both visually arresting and intellectually provocative, never more so than in its wax candle female nudes that suggest the impermanence of life, the fiery inspiration of womanhood and the way women have been burned as witches.
The slightly delayed match itself was just as thrilling, a seesaw event until Postage Stamp took charge. This Sunday’s match promises to be no less as Greenwich Polo debuts the American Cup tournament, which concludes July 21.
The gates off Hurlingham Drive open at 1 p.m. with the match at 3 p.m. Tickets, which are car passes, range from $40 general admission for one car to $600 for four cars and a cabana that seats eight.
For more, visit greenwichpoloclub.com.
