Westchester Cup

In 1886, when the first international polo matches between England and the U. S. were played at Newport, they caused so little stir that a team of British cricketers, visiting the U. S. at the same time, did not know until they returned home that a team of British poloists had been almost within batting distance of them. Last week, when the twelfth series of matches for the Westchester Cup* took place at the Meadow Brook Club on Long Island, it was the No. 1 international sporting event on the U. S. calendar for 1939.

So eager were the British to carry back the Cup this year, after five unsuccessful attempts, that they scoured the Empire for the best ponies they could get (the Nawab of Bhopal and the Maharaja of Kashmir, two of the richest men in India, donated eleven), shipped them to the U. S. six months in advance so that they could get acclimated, sent their best poloists almost half way round the world to California for four months of tuning-up matches against U. S. players. The 36-man, 64-horse expedition cost Britain's Hurlingham Polo Association $250,000.

Last week the 20,000 polo enthusiasts sitting in Meadow Brook's turquoise-blue stands realized--a little sadly--that even this, Britain's best-of-all teams since the War (Bob Skene, Aidan Roark, Gerald Balding, Eric Tyrrell-Martin) was no match for the U. S. four: Mike Phipps, Tommy Hitchcock, Stewart Iglehart, Winston Guest. Fortnight ago, in the first of the two-out-of-three-game series, they were trounced 11-to-7. Last week the drubbing was even worse. The U. S. side won, 9-to-4, retained the Cup that has not crossed the Atlantic since 1921.

Hero of this year's series was the same towheaded titan who was the hero of the first post-War series in 1921 and every series since (except 1936 when he was too busy to go abroad to play): Thomas Hitchcock Jr. Son of the captain of the first U. S. polo team (that lost to England in 1886), Tommy Jr., at 39--and after a quarter-century of competitive polo-proved last week that he is still the best polo player in the world. Spectators, gasping at his fearless riding, peerless tactics, magnificent driving and accurate shotmaking, realized why he has been ranked at 10 goals (theoretically a perfect player) for 17 years--greatest feat in the annals of polo.

* Put up in 1886 by New York's Westchester Polo Club whose first playing field was at the Jerome Park race track in Westchester County. Later the club moved to a field on 156th Street, Manhattan, still known as the Polo Grounds although it is the ball-park of the New York Giants.

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