At Meadow Brook

The J. Cheever Cowdins gave a party the night before and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney gave one the night after. There were parties all week through Long Island's polo country. Big cars hurried along the roads, driving a little faster than usual for there were many trips to be made--guests met at the station, a wait at the front door and then to Meadow Brook or Piping Rock for lunch, then the game, then out to dinner, and a long wait through the dancing. At the parties, and in the garish, robins-egg blue grandstand at the games, was a mingling of many worlds, the great business world and the somewhat different, sporting-society world, with a touch of court and politics. Andrew Mellon and Harold S. Vanderbilt, British Ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay, the Stokes, Astors, Burdens, Hitchcocks and Long Islanders, with a rag tag of art and literature plus Betty Nuthall and Rudy Vallee--and at the root of it a fact: the U. S. polo team won the first match in the international series from England at Meadow Brook, 10 to 5.

It was not the English team that people expected a month ago. Aidan Roark got mastoid. Captain Richard George, another tentative No. 1, fell ill too. Barney Balding was tried out for a week. He had to quit after a bad fall. A young lieutenant of the Royal Scots Greys named Humphrey Guinness had done well as a substitute in 1927. There was nothing for it now but to put him in at back, move the veteran Lewis Lacey to No. 2--a position he had never played before when a match meant anything--leave Capt. C. T. I. Roark at No. 3 and let Gerald Balding try No. i. The situation was not as bad as it sounded because Lacey is brilliant at any position and Guinness had been playing splendidly. Also, the Englishmen were saying that this time they knew they were not outmounted--they had brought along better ponies than any previous British team. On the American side nothing sensational had happened. Five-foot one-inch, 175-lb. Eric Pedley of California had made No. 1 as everyone expected him to--the first westerner to get on an international team. Thomas Hitchcock Jr. was at No. 3 where he could not be expected to make as many goals as he used to at No. 2 but where he could feed Pedley and Hopping long drives to score on. Big, young, hard-hitting Winston Guest was at back.

Critics had predicted a runaway for the Americans. This did not happen. Through the first half, and until the seventh chukker. the Englishmen made it hard. Lacey's Argentine ponies outran the bigger U. S. mounts for a while; first Guest, then Roark and Hitchcock broke mallets. Lacey stole the ball from Hopping and Hitchcock for beautiful shots. What the English team lacked most was an accurate goal shooter like Pedley. Consistently the ball was fed to Balding at No. 1, but under pressure, Balding's shots were sliced, sometimes missed entirely. In the last periods the U. S. team put on speed while their opponents tired; Hopping banged in a 60-yd. drive; Hitchcock got in a long one, but twice Lacey got away from the pack for spectacular scores. ". . . The hardest match I ever played in," said Hitchcock as he dismounted.

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