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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.
