Godara strikes terror

Earlier, Chirag Nihalani on Honey Bun and Milan Luthria astride Chanel took top honours in the jump and peg competition. While Nihalani participated in the show jumping event, Luthria competed in tent pegging.

Luthria achieved a double when his team won the team tent pegging title. Team B, comprising Manish Shah on Tinkerbelle, Manoj Sippy on Lambada and Luthria on Carrera, won ahead of the other two teams in the competition.

In the polo final, Taufiq Ahmed (-1) provideda rousing start to ARC with a goal in the very first minute of the contest to give them a 2.5 goal advantage. With players changing sides and horses after each chukker, the contest was just beginning to warm up on a hot Wednesday afternoon.

While Godara (+4) levelled scores in the second chukker and scored one more, the lead still stayed with ARC who had one goal in this chukker. Going into the final chukker, the scores were 3.5-3 in ARC’s favour.

The scores could have been different had Godara, who dominated the show, not missed chances in the first and second chukkers. He faltered a few feet from the post in the first chukker, missing the shot completely after splitting the field and galloping from the centre-line. In the next quarter, he committed a weak shot off a 30-yard spot kick.

He made amends, however, in the final quarter with two strikes that took his team to title.

While with a few seconds left, Dinyar Madon (+0) missed a 30-yarder which would have given Talwar a biggervictory-margin.

RESULTS

Indian Navy Polo Stick: Talwar (Dhruvpal Godara, Dinyar Madon, Aashish Naik, Vishal Nihalani) 5 bt Amateur Rider’s Club (B R Alexander, Shyam Mariwala, Dilip Singh Rathore, Taufiq Ahmed) 3.5.

Jump and peg: Chirag Nihalani and Milan Luthria.

Team tent pegging: Team B (Milan Luthria, Manish Shah, Manoj Sippy).