Palm City Polo, with two up-and-coming teenagers, won the Season 11 Women’s Championship Tournament final on April 16 at Grand Champions Polo Club in Wellington, Florida.

In a thrilling championship final, Palm City Polo (Jacqi Casey, Hope Arellano, Tiffany Busch and Mili Galindo) led for most of the game to defeat Scribble Horse Polo Team (Kathy Iverson, Katherine Roze, Courtney Asdourian, Kirstie Allen) by a final score of 5-4.

The winning team was made up of players who each share their passion for polo with their fathers. Tiffany Busch, the daughter of Peter Busch, is a thirdgeneration polo player. Arellano is the daughter of 8-goal Julio Arellano and is also a third-generation player. Casey, the daughter of former 7-goaler Joey Casey, is a fourth-generation player. Galindo is the daughter of former 9-goaler Hector Galindo. While her grandfather did not play, he and his brother worked with polo horses, which opened up the world of polo to his sons.

Arellano, 13, the youngest player in the tournament, was named Most Valuable Player. The scrappy player mounted on small, handy ponies, scored one goal and was her team’s playmaker.

“This was awesome, it was so much fun,” Arellano said. “I had an awesome team to play with in an awesome game. The winning was an extra bonus. It was very competitive. This was one of the best games I’ve ever been in.”

Arellano, who has been playing since she was 6, played all four of her horses in the tournament. “They were all mine,” she said with a smile. “Some of them were hand-me-downs from by brothers. My dad and brothers have always encouraged me in the sport. It doesn’t matter that I am a girl. My goal is to be 10 goals when I’m older. I love everything about this sport.”

Arellano, who has competed in several Polo Training Foundation tournaments growing up, had played with Casey and Galindo, but never Busch.

Busch was a great team captain, utilizing each of her teammates’ strengths. Always cool and calm, she kept the team organized. Her praise and encouragement seemed to give the girls all the confidence they needed.

"She was amazing,” Arellano said. “She kept us all in order without a doubt.” Rubi, owned and ridden by Busch, one of the sport’s top rated players at a 7-goal women’s handicap, was selected Best Playing Pony. Busch led her team in scoring with four goals.

The team’s success was due to the balanced team play exhibited by the players. Galindo, 23, had some great defensive plays and fast runs on her ponies, and Casey, 16, mixed it up in the middle, playing great position superbly mounted on the Casey string.

Casey said it was an honor to win the WCT final. She had been looking forward to moving up from the juniors, but her parents wanted to be sure she was ready. She worked hard all year to prove to them that she could do it.

“I played in 10-goal leagues all winter to get ready,” explained Casey. “The WCT final was a lot of fun and my horses went great. It was a great team.”

Galindo had a coast-to-coast run, hot on the heels of Asdourian, which ultimately resulted in a penalty awarded to Palm City. After the match, fans refered to the play when saying Mili had lived up to her family’s name on the polo fields, ‘the Flying Galindos.’

"The team gelled so well together, and that’s what made it work,” explained Galindo. “The connection with my horses gave me such excitement and they played extremely well. I was not only excited and happy for my team, but for my other partners–my horses–as well.”

Asdourian, another top rated player at 6-goals (womens), also scored four goals and brought her team within a goal in the fourth and final chukker.

In the consolation game, Catena USA (Malia Bryan, Belinda Brody, Cecelia Cochran and Leah Masters) defeated Creative Marketing (Lindsay Dolan, Dawn Weber, Amanda Roberts and Ashley Mckenzie) 8-2. Catena USA’s scoring was balanced with each player scoring two goals. Bryan, 15, was named Most Valuable Player. Her horse, Taba, a paint mare owned by Ricky Bostwick, was named Best Playing Pony. Bryan has been playing polo since she was 8. She also barrel races and is a show jumper. Her older brother Wes plays polo.

This is fun, I like it,” Bryan said. “I have gotten a lot better, especially this winter because I have played a lot more in different tournaments.

"The WCT is great to play in. It’s a great organization and they have great teams always with great girls and great outcomes. I like playing against other women, it’s a little more evenly-balanced and always competitive. It’s our nature to be competitive. I feel it gives us a chance in a different element.”

For the second year in a row, the Sapphires (Jennifer Pascarelli, Riley Ganzi, Jacqi Casey and Jennifer Williams) won the fourth annual WCT Junior Invitational with a 2-0 victory over the Diamonds (Ava Rose Hinkson, Alyssa Tranchilla, Hannah Reynolds, Maureen Brennan) despite intermittent rain showers. Ganzi and Casey, playing in her second game of the day, each scored one goal for the Sapphires.

The teams were coached by two of the sport’s all-time greatest players, WCT founder Sunny Hale (Sapphires) and Coca- Cola’s Gillian Johnston (Diamonds). Ganzi’s horse, Regalito, was named Best Playing Pony. The WCT event sees more than 20 qualifiers in the U.S. alone. Recently, Italy, Spain and Australia expressed interest in WCT qualifiers and two are expected to be held in Great Britain this year. Hale, the first woman to win the U.S. Open, is impressed by the caliber of play among women and juniors, especially when she watches young players such as Arellano, Bryan, Casey, Galindo and Ganzi, the future of women’s polo.

“Each year the quality of women’s polo gets better,” Hale said. “This junior game was a nice moving game and the 8-10 goal final was a fantastic game. The ball was really moving and they were running down the field making real classic plays.

"To see those young girls moving up is so exciting. This is the vision that I saw 10 years ago. For me to watch it happening gave me chills, especially the young girls stepping up in the adult bracket. The quality of polo they are going to play by the time they are 20 is going to be fantastic.”

Hale said Grand Champions Polo Club President Melissa Ganzi has played an integral role in the WCT’s burgeoning success.

What’s amazing about Grand Champions is that we are on the main field, main season during the U.S. Open,” Hale said. “In my day when I grew up, you were lucky if you got a practice field on Monday, maybe or maybe not and almost never a Sunday field. Grand Champions has supported us since day one.”

Women’s and medium-goal polo remain the largest growing sectors in polo, aided by the WCT series founded in 2005 to help consolidate women’s polo and promote high quality competition throughout the world.

This year’s event supported awareness of the Jimmy Ryce Center and Be The Change Movement. Ted Ryce, the center’s director, was among the awards presenters during post-game ceremonies. The Jimmy Ryce Center donates bloodhounds to police enforcement to help find missing children in the U.S.

La Martina is the WCT’s official jersey supplier; Nano’s Polo Mallets is the official mallet supplier and Catena USA is the official timepiece of the WCT final, the official recognized event of the American Polo Horse Association. Grand Champions is the host polo club. Other sponsors are Designer Hair by Nikki, AutoMax Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram; and Frieda’s Sweets and Meats.

By Sharon Robb and Gwen Rizzo
Photos by Alex Pacheco