Jilly Cooper - Polo

In the sixth chukka the O’Briens were awarded a penalty four which Luke knocked out of the air to Angel who again took it upfield with three almost languorously contemptuous offside forehands and then scored with an exquisite nearside cut shot. The crowd boiled over; 10-12 and Angel’s relations were all shaking Bart and Bibi by the hand. Angel’s bay mare had a lot to do with that goal, thought Luke darkly, but no-one told her so. In fact none of those gallant ponies had been patted once in the whole match except by him.

The heat was awful and even the umpires’ ponies were white with sweat. He must concentrate. He was exhausted after a long flight, unused to playing eight chukkas, unacclimatized to such punishing heat and the hand smashed earlier in the year was giving him hell. Suddenly the cliffs of yelling faces on either side seemed to be closing in on him and for a terrifying moment he thought he was going to black out.

Respite came horribly. One of Miguel’s ponies, racing Angel’s to the boards, tripped and, overturning, broke her back. With a delay of ten minutes before her body was taken away, Luke managed to recover in the shade. Then in the next chukka one of Alejandro’s most gallant mares broke a leg doing a lightning turn and also had to be shot. Patricio, who had made the mare himself, was in floods of tears. The crowd moaned in sympathy. Again, rage at such senseless waste fuelled Luke’s blast-furnace. As Miguel hurtled towards him, blotting out the sun, bringing the ball down for a certain goal, Luke coolly charged him, buffalo for buffalo, and passing him legitimately on the offside, whisked the ball to Angel who passed just in time to Patricio who scored. Twelve all, proclaimed the sea-green scoreboard in vast, white letters. The crowd had nearly yelled themselves hoarse and resorted more and more to their instruments. Two rival supporters, overcome by emotion, started a punch-up. Primrose-yellow flags and banners, emerald-green parasols swooned in the heat.

It was the last chukka. The O’Briens’ legendary temper was roused. It was time for Goliath to despatch David. But, by sheer persistence, the Mendozas, each clamped on his opposing player like Jack Russells, managed to keep the score level until, in the last ten seconds, Seamus crossed Luke. Up went the Mendozas’ sticks, twirling in triumph and there was a sharp exchange between the O’Briens and one of the long-thighed umpires who’d been looking at his watch at the time, until the third man came out of the bar and confirmed it was a foul.

Grimly the O’Briens lined up behind their goal. The Mendoza supporters (now most of the crowd) bellowed without ceasing and, in the bars below the great stadium, started opening bottles of champagne. Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel exchanged surreptitious but delighted grins. The grooms of the Mendozas rubbed their calloused hands in glee. Señor Gracias never missed a penalty. The Open was going to change hands at last.

The stadium went quiet as slowly Luke circled, a lone figure on an incandescently white horse under the burning sun. Turning Fantasma towards goal, he suddenly panicked. His hand might not hold up and he should have given the penalty to Angel. For a second his concentration flickered. To a man the Mendoza supporters groaned as Luke mis-hit and the ball went wide as the last bell went.

Overwhelmed by shame, Luke slumped in the saddle, resting his tired head on Fantasma’s bristling grey neck. He ought to fall on his polo mallet. Then, realizing the match wasn’t over, with titanic effort he pulled himself together and cantered back to the pony lines.

‘Sorry, you guys,’ he called to the rest of the team who were on the verge of tears.

‘Sorry,’ he shouted to the dead-pan masks of the grooms.

‘I thought you never miss a penalty,’ snarled a furious Alejandro. ‘Why are you bloody well smiling?’

‘To stop myself crying,’ said Luke.

Only Fantasma seemed to be on his side now. Flattening her ears and striking out at Alejandro, she nudged Luke sympathetically in the ribs as he dismounted, then tried to make him laugh by knocking his hat off.

Waiting to go into a ninth chukka, Luke took a swig of Seven-Up and soaked an entire towel wiping off the sweat. Alejandro wanted him to ride another flashy, beautiful chestnut called Zou Zou who’d been rested for three chukkas. But knowing Fantasma best, Luke opted to ride her a third time, which is allowed in Argentina. Briefly he put his arms round her neck echoing Sir Jacob Astley’s prayer at the Battle of Edgehill.

‘ Oh Fantasma, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget me. ’

Fantasma, who was dying to get back into the action, nipped Luke’s polo shirt in acquiescence. Three hundred chukkas with him were better than one with Alejandro.

‘Come on, you guys,’ shouted Luke as they rode back on to the field. ‘I know I goofed, but we’ve got to hold on. We can do it.’

The young Mendozas and Angel, who’d all played their hearts out, were now running on pure adrenalin. The shadows were lengthening, a slight breeze swirled pale blue jacaranda petals across the pitch, but the sun seemed even hotter. It was sudden death now. All that mattered was somehow to get the ball between the O’Briens’ posts.

The Mendozas had youth on their side and with kamikaze courage, the three young boys tried to score again and again, until Kevin O’Brien, at back, got fed up and cleared from his own goal. It was a monumental hit, the ball making a huge arc through the air, hurtling towards Luke who was waiting just beyond the halfway line.

Luke had left his back door open and he knew that Fantasma, despite her gallant, gutsy heart, had completely run out of steam. There was no way she could turn, gallop and keep up with Miguel and Juan, nor shake the pair of them off and take the ball back down to the O’Briens’ goal. The ball was still hurtling towards him. He was dimly aware of the screaming, excited blur of the crowd, of the leaping mallets of Juan and Miguel trying to halt the ball as it flew over their heads.

Now, bearing down on him, bringing death in the afternoon to the Mendozas’ hopes, pounded Juan and Miguel, ready to whip the ball away from him and together take it down the field and blast it into goal.

Despite her utter exhaustion, Fantasma never took her eyes off the ball. Trembling with anticipation, shifting from foot to foot, she was determined to position Luke perfectly for the shot. Dropping his reins on her sodden steelgrey neck, grasping his mallet in two huge hands, Luke took a mighty swipe as the ball passed him at eye-level. It was a complete cowboy shot but perfectly met. There was a tremendous crack, like an elephant’s tusk breaking, as he connected.

The crowd gave a great shout of amazement as the ball took off back again. As though carried by the slight breeze and the indrawn breath of everyone in the ground, it flew like a white gull towards the posts. The great shout of amazement had become a greater one of ecstasy and encouragement. Had it gone far enough? Kevin O’Brien bucketed back. But he was so busy looking up in the air and whipping his pony that he didn’t give himself enough time to get in position. Swiping at the ball as it thudded to the pavement-hard ground, he missed and the next second it had somehow bounced to the right and sidled in through the posts.

With agonizing slowness, as though the goal-judge couldn’t believe his eyes, the red flag suddenly went into a frantic jive of joy.

For a few seconds there was utter silence as it dawned on the vast crowd that the Titans had at long last been toppled. The six-year wait was over. Then followed a mighty explosion of cheering that must have been heard by the foals at General Piran and, just as if the huge stands had leant forward to see better, the fans fell, as though toppled, on to the field. Fantasma’s breath was coming in sobbing gasps. Her nostrils flared red as traffic-lights, her pale coat was black with sweat; like cobras, her veins writhed with her heaving body.