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Top polo players sacked for “bad-boy behaviour”

H&H news desk

8 April, 2008

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Two of polo's highest-rated players, brothers Pite and Sebastian Merlos, have been fired from their team for "bad-boy behaviour" in the middle of America's high-goal season.

Pite and Sebastian, nine- and 10-goalers respectively, have played on the Lechuza Caracas team since 1999. Last year they won the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup at Cowdray Park.

But they were fired last month by team owner and patron, Venezuelan multimillionaire Victor Vargas, immediately after the team's opening 14-12 loss to Bendabout in the United States Polo Association's (USPA) Piaget Gold Cup tournament.

During the match, both Pite and Sebastian shouted disparaging epithets to opposing players, umpires, team-mates and one another.

Lechuza polo manager Steven Scott told H&H that the Merlos brothers "are not a part of Lechuza any more".

Mr Scott said the brothers "will not be playing with Lechuza in the UK and are free to play with anybody they want, both in the UK and the USA".

The team is scheduled to compete in the Lechuza Caracas Cup, CV Whitney Cup and the USPA Open Championship. But within three days, Mr Vargas had replaced the two players with eight-goaler Sapo Caset and seven-goaler Guille Aguero.

The brothers are not new to controversy: Sebastian Merlos was suspended from the high-goal season in Argentina in both 2006 and 2007 for threatening officials in the course of play, and even their Gold Cup win last year was surrounded by controversy over a substitution.

Rated at the top of their game, the pair are estimated to earn about £1million each, plus expenses. Under their assistance and direction, the Lechuza Caracas polo team has become one of the most respected and competitive team operations in polo.

Pite and Sebastian Merlos declined to comment.

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound (3 April, '08)

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