Escuela de Deportes
Pato is not Polo, don't confuse them.
There is no mallet or small ball and there is no goal,
but there are horses, reins, saddles and bravery.
Pato is a criollo game played since the 1600s.
At the beginning the game consisted of
horseback riders tugging on a sewn leather sack
with handles that was stuffed with a live duck sticking out its neck
The one who kept the duck would run off
and the rivals would try to surround,
take away the duck,
and the tugging would begin once again.
The winner was the team who managed to get the duck
to the agreed upon final destination.
It became mortally dangerous
and politicians and religious leaders tried to stop it
until they banned it.
The sport was left as a ball without a handle
until 1937 when the first rules were drafted.
Pato is played in six eight minute long periods
Four riders per team try to get to the other end
to make a goal. The pato, now a ball,
is lifted from the ground and passed to a team mate.
In the year 1953 by decree of President Peron
it was declared a national sport.
The most important tourney of this sport is the
Argentinian Pato Open played in the Argentinian Polo Fields.
On April in 2006 the first World Cup of Pato-Horseball
was played. Argentina lost in the final to Portugal's team.
Surely because they didn't have the Pato Fillol,
nor Pato Abbondanzieri nor the Patoruzito. Quack.