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.