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Escuela de Deportes

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Pato is not Polo, don't confuse them.

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There is no mallet or small ball and there is no goal,

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but there are horses, reins, saddles and bravery.

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Pato is a criollo game played since the 1600s.

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At the beginning the game consisted of

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horseback riders tugging on a sewn leather sack

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with handles that was stuffed with a live duck sticking out its neck

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The one who kept the duck would run off

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and the rivals would try to surround,

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take away the duck,

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and the tugging would begin once again.

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The winner was the team who managed to get the duck

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to the agreed upon final destination.

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It became mortally dangerous

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and politicians and religious leaders tried to stop it

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until they banned it.

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The sport was left as a ball without a handle

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until 1937 when the first rules were drafted.

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Pato is played in six eight minute long periods

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Four riders per team try to get to the other end

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to make a goal. The pato, now a ball,

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is lifted from the ground and passed to a team mate.

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In the year 1953 by decree of President Peron

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it was declared a national sport.

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The most important tourney of this sport is the

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Argentinian Pato Open played in the Argentinian Polo Fields.

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On April in 2006 the first World Cup of Pato-Horseball

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was played. Argentina lost in the final to Portugal's team.

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Surely because they didn't have the Pato Fillol,

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nor Pato Abbondanzieri nor the Patoruzito. Quack.