Greenwich Polo Club gallops into another season

May 31, 2014

There’s no Prince Harry to spice up the Greenwich Polo Club this year, but that doesn’t mean fans aren’t in for an exciting season.

Things get off to a rollicking start Sunday, June 1 with the White Birch home team – named after club founder Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm and White Birch Paper – in action against CT Energia. The home team will be led by Argentina’s Mariano Aguerre, considered one of the all-time greats, and his fleet countryman Hilario Ulloa. In April, the two teamed to help Alegria take the U.S. Open title.

The polo club is set in Greenwich’s verdant, undulating backcountry. Recently, I had a chance to chat there about the season with Australia’s Nick Manifold, who’ll be playing No. 2, an offensive position, for CT Energia Sunday. What a treat it was to sit out in the grandstand on a picture-perfect spring day, the cottony cumulus clouds so ripe and low that they seemed ready to touch the Jim Dine sculpture (think a huge, modern “Winged Victory”) that stands guard across the field. As the staff put the finishing touches on the immaculately manicured expanse and added patrons’ nameplates to the box seats, Nick gave this relative newbie a polo primer, something I was extremely grateful for as my one experience with the game had been last May’s Sentebale charity match starring Prince Harry and Nacho Figueras that was an otherworldly media event. (Polo does, however, figure in “Criterion,” the third novel in my “The Games Men Play” series, the story of a star-crossed equestrian family told in part from the viewpoint of a horse trying to win the Triple Crown.)

On ‘Words and Pictures’ – and words and pictures at The Lionheart Gallery

May 21, 2014

We’re all patterns in the universe, swimmer Daniel Reiner-Kahn reasons in my new novel “Water Music.” But sometimes it’s only when we’re at the end of a journey – maybe even life’s journey – that we understand how the strands came together. At other times, we recognize how the strands fit as they’re being woven.

Last week, I had an onstage conversation with film critic Marshall Fine at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck, N.Y. about the relationship between language and images after a screening of “Words and Pictures,” which opens this Friday, May 23. It’s the story of a tempestuous rivalry between a prickly artist (Juliette Binoche) and a showoff writer (Clive Owen). Four days later, the writer (me) and the artist (David Hutchinson) came together more happily at a reading from “Water Music” at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge. After, I opened up the floor for a discussion about David’s paintings and drawings there, which are based on the perverse writings of Jean Genet.

First, a few words about “Words and Pictures,” a rather contrived but nonetheless absorbing movie about a love-hate relationship that sparks a contest between the artist’s students and the writer’s. It occurred to me after that the only arena in which men and women compete is the intellectual one.

California Chrome goes for the (Triple) Crown

May 19, 2014

So now it’s on to the Belmont Stakes June 7 and a shot at the Triple Crown, and you think, We’ve been here before, most recently with I’ll Have Another. We get all excited and then we’re let down, so when a new champ comes along, we hedge our bets with Why-he’ll-win, why-he-won’t articles.

But I’m a born optimist, one who’s not afraid to go out on a limb. I believed right from the get-go that California Chrome will do what no horse has done since Affirmed in 1978. He has the speed and endurance, the smarts and the heart. And, contrary to what people think who’ve misinterpreted his rags-to-riches story, he has an excellent pedigree, with Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Native Dancer among his ancestors. His owners’ origins may be humble, but there’s nothing humble about Chrome’s bloodlines. And blood will out.

The equine Ali-Frazier – Affirmed and Alydar

May 10, 2014

Amid California Chrome’s quest for the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred racing – which continues May 17 with The Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland – comes Linda Carroll and David Rosner’s juicy new book “Duel for the Crown: Affirmed, Alydar, and Racing’s Greatest Rivalry” (Gallery Books, $26, 360 pages). It tells the story of two coppery 3-year-old colts – laidback Affirmed out of upstart Harbor View Farm in Florida and high-strung Alydar out of Calumet Farm in Kentucky, the New York Yankees of Thoroughbred dynasties – who in the spring of 1978 offered racing fans and the general public alike two very different approaches, the authors write:

“Despite their similar chestnut coloring and their shared bloodlines as descendants of the great Native Dancer, Affirmed and Alydar boasted the kind of clashing styles and complementary personalities that fuel the most enduring rivalries. Off the track, the refined Affirmed was as relaxed and easygoing as the regal Alydar was macho and aggressive. On the track, their contrasting styles forged the equine equivalent of Ali the Boxer versus Frazier the Slugger. Affirmed, graceful and swift like Ali, was the classic frontrunner, gliding with the precision of a stopwatch and flicking his ears to alert his precocious jockey (Steve Cauthen) to an impending challenge, while Alydar, brawny and bullish like Frazier, was the classic stalker, gearing up to unleash his come-from-behind knockout punch. The classic confrontation was so close that it would all come down to one champion’s indomitable will to win.”

Indeed, they would race each other 10 times in 14 months, with Affirmed usually gaining the upper hand, er, hoof. But it wasn’t easy.

Cinderella males: Jason Collins and California Chrome

May 5, 2014

The greatest story in sports is the Cinderella story, in which the player – perhaps he or she is even of the four-legged kind – comes out of nowhere or overcomes tremendous obstacles to triumph. Indeed, the reason the Cinderella story is a cliché is because we’ve seen it time and again and love it so.

In my new novel “Water Music,” the Cinderella man is Iraqi tennis prodigy Alí Iskandar, who withstands war, abuse, uncertainty and even a jealous rival to become world No. 1. And though his friends and lovers – Alex, Daniel and Dylan – have more materially to begin with, they, too, face real challenges in the quest to be the best. Maybe that’s why sports feature so many story lines of perseverance. Sports not only represent a way out for the athlete, but they attract the kind of people who already know what it’s like to be in it for the long haul.

At the moment, we’re being treated to several Cinderella tales, not the least of which features Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez at The Metropolitan Opera. But I’d like to concentrate here on two superb athletes – Brooklyn Nets’ center Jason Collins and Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome.