21-to-9

That the U. S. furnishes the world's best poloists is a notion as universal as were once the notions that the U. S. furnishes the best prizefighters, swimmers and tennis players. Last week, in full view of 38,000 witnesses including more top-line socialites than any other sports gathering of the year, this notion exploded with a dozen loud and startling cracks. The cracks were made by the mallets of four Argentine poloists knocking the ball through the goal posts four times in each of the last three chukkers of a game against the best team in the U. S. Score for Argentina when the game was over was 21-to-9--most one-sided result of a first-class International polo match on U. S. records.

At least 50% of polo are the "mounts," now bred so big and speedy that poloists have almost discarded the term "ponies." Main reason for Argentina's victory last week was the fact that the Argentine mounts, which are likely to bring record prices after the series, were not only better but more numerous. After the fourth chukker, when the score was tied at 8-all, the U. S. team--Bostwick, Balding. Hitchcock, Whitney--began, as is customary, to use ponies that had already played a chukker. The Argentines--Duggan, Cavanagh, Gazzotti, Andrada--used fresh ones throughout the second half.

Last week's game, by an agreement made last spring to save the trouble of test matches to choose an International team, was not, properly speaking between Argentina and the U. S. It was between Argentina and Greentree, winner of the U. S. Open Championship, in which the best poloists in the U. S. were distributed among half a dozen teams. Main chance to restore U. S. faith in its poloists seemed last week to depend on whether substitutions--specifically, Winston Guest for John Hay Whitney at Back and Stewart Iglehart for Gerald Balding at No. 2-- could be made before the next game in the two-out-of-three series. What Argentina's reaction to such a move would be was promptly indicated by Lieut.-Colonel Enrique Padilla of the Argentine Polo Association when he heard of the proposal in Buenos Aires. Said he: "May I say a revision of the Greentree team would be equivalent to this situation: I agree to sell you a house at a certain price, then tell you the price has been changed."

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