Coming into the party, guests were greeted by a sold-out sign with a single night performance by Julio Enrique "Alfonso" Maloney. The performance by Chris Maloney, who portrayed a South American high-goal pro and musician was nothing short of "spectacular". I had to try to play the straight man, who conducted the interview. That may have been the greatest challenge I have faced in a long time, due to Chris's wonderful sense of humor.

Chris is a successful business person, a husband, and father of two beautiful children. But his gift of spirit and humor to all of us is his true measure of his real fortune. As if his Julio presentation was not sufficient, Chris continued the performance throughout an additional performance of Kareoke, where he chose the hit songs La Vida Loca & Roxanne to perform. He was joined onstage by background singer/dancers Deborah Dalton and Laura Maloney.

Chris was then presented with a brand new "love container" by Tim Noonan and Carlos Galindo. The container was the former tack trailer that Bob Kuzman has been working on all summer. Bob's protype that held such high expectations it is still the only one of it's kind as Bob hasn't been able to raise the $30 in capital outlay to finance the production of a second trailer. However, we are sure that the celebrity endorsement by Julio, who also calls himself Alfonso sometimes, should help spark some sales interest for Bob Kuzman.

The Crash & Burn awards continued with the presentation of beautiful club jackets and t-shirts to runners-up. Remember, the more you get hurt, the better your chances of a jacket. So this is one awards presentation that you are better off walking away empty handed.

Chris Maloney walked away with a jacket in a very tough division after his memorable emergency dismount in front of the Sunday public in a pre-game demonstration. Chris avoided what would have been one of his most embarrassing moments in his life, by falling off at a walk in front of the entire crowd. Instead, he managed to do a full flip and land on his feet, and then spring up to face the crowd, as if he had just finished a gymnastic floor exercise in the Olympics.

Polo Club Office Manger, Heather Chronert also received a jacket after suffering a torn tendon in her heel after dancing the Scottish Highland Fling at a recent wedding. Heather is on crutches for 12 weeks. Needless to say, the club has canceled any future time off for Heather, as we are now sure that we can not do without her.

Norma Owen was also recognized as the only woman at the Club able to wrestle a 1100 pound horse to the ground. (Actually the horse reared over and broke several of Norma's bones and sidelined Norma for most of the summer.) Norma is one of our Founding Members and has a heart as big as a house.

Jim Epstein was in a close match with Ashton Wolf for the most falls, until Jim proudly admitted that he had gone off three times in one chukker (seven minutes). When accepting the award, Jim wanted to thank Scott Gundlach for selling him this fine animal last summer. If it wasn't for that fine animal, Jim would have never gone off the several dozen times that helped him secure the jacket.

Tyler Goodspeed and Jesse Bray took the Junior division for their tandem high dive off the hay pile (comparable to the low platform, of course without any water in the pool). Moments after they hit the dirt, and they began to assess damages, a 110 hay bale fell on top of them. Of course, they were only told by six different parties, not to climb up there, but being the true explorers that they are, they pressed on.

Social Member Dr. Jeff McDonald took the bike polo honors with numerous uncharted aerials and an un-spoke-en amount of wrecks. Good thing he can put himself back together.

And in closing, we have to give special mention to our crooning cowboy, Dr. Will "Garth" Roy for his musical talents both at the Crash & Burn and his super job on Sunday's National Anthem.