Tag archives: polo
With news that Prince Harry, wife Meghan, and newly-born son, Archie, might possibly be purchasing a second home in Los Angeles, the rumor mill has been running at full throttle. The polo-playing Duke of Sussex participates regularly with Santa Barbara Polo Club player, Nacho Figueras, the Argentinian Ralph Lauren Polo model, who competes on the […]
The fields are impeccably groomed, the horses are ready, and the best of the best competitors are heading to our rarefied enclave for the hotly anticipated opening of the Santa Barbara Polo Club’s 108th season on May 5. The season at the Engel & Volkers stadium will feature an exhilarating summer of action-packed tournaments and […]
More than 20 student artists were honored by the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara during a presentation and reception at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, with each of them receiving a $2,500 scholarship and their artwork exhibited in the museum’s Family Resource Center. “Much of their work reveals a remarkable maturity and sureness of […]
Social gridlock reigned when tony twosome, Pat and Ursula Nesbitt, threw a heaving holiday bash at Bella Vista, their sprawling Summerland polo ranch. More than 150 guests were welcomed to the bustling beano, catered by the Biltmore, by ballerinas from the Luminario company in Los Angeles, while the Lois Mahalia Choir entertained with gospel and […]
Santa Barbara Polo Club player and Ralph Lauren Polo model Nacho Figueras has praised his good friend Prince Harry for his “realness” and says Queen Elizabeth‘s 35-year-old grandson is “serious about improving life for kids” who’ve not had the same advantages in life. Argentinian Nacho, 42, tells Town & Country magazine: “What I like most […]
After 33 years as controller at the Santa Barbara Polo Club, Debby Bernal is riding off into the sunset. Debby, who is being replaced by Susie Banda-Avila, was presented with an undisclosed check to be used for her forthcoming world travels by club manager, David Sigman, at the recent Fire and Ice gala. Storied Pasts […]
In last week’s Montecito Miscellany, we mistakenly left out Gonzalo Sarmiento from the photo’s caption, which should have included Mr. Sarmiento. Many apologies. Mulling Mueller Matters There are certain areas of the Mueller investigation that could be very disturbing when his report comes out later this month. As a former FBI director, does Mr. Mueller […]
It was running hot and cold when the Santa Barbara Polo Club hosted a sold-out Fire and Ice party. More than 185 guests scoffed and bopped the night away when temperatures dropped into the 50s, the winds blew and the rain, briefly, poured. Fortunately a tent, with heat lamps, had been erected a few feet […]
High-goal season at the Santa Barbara Polo Club ended on a soaringly high note when longtime patron Justin Klentner‘s Klentner Ranch team hoisted the 109-year-old Silver Air Pacific Coast Open trophy, the most prestigious tournament on the Left Coast, for the first time. Although Justin, who has had his team for six years, was unable […]
Santa Barbara Polo Club’s hallowed Holden Field was turned into an outdoor planetarium when it threw an Under the Stars bash for 200 guests with organizers from the local 63-year-old astronomical unit, part of the Natural History Museum, which does 200 events annually showing off the stars above, just two days before a full moon. […]
Montecito has always been an integral part of the Santa Barbara Studio Artists (SBSA) Open Studios tour. But not so much this year. The annual Labor Day weekend event when local artists who are members of the organization welcome guests into their working home studios or off-site locations has just one site for visitors to […]
Football may have its large and impressive Super Bowl rings, but now the refined game of polo has its own equivalent. A unique 14-carat white gold ring, featuring the logo of the Santa Barbara Polo Club, with an eagle carved into the front and back of the ring’s mounting, and 109 hand-set natural fancy black […]
Santa Barbara Polo Club player Judith Baker has been flying high! To celebrate her 75th birthday the bubbly Brit, who I have known for more than a decade, took a 3,000-feet, 30-minute paragliding flight above the exquisitely manicured oceanside Carpinteria club after participating in a tournament playing for the World Gym team. “The idea originally […]
A new local TV show has launched – at the gallop. Santa Barbara Polo Life, co-hosted by former TV anchor Charles Ward, longtime Texan promoter at the SB Polo Club, and Tara Gray, who has spent more than 10,000 hours on air, started taping the weekly 30-minute series at the TVSB studios on Salinas Street […]
The Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, which since its founding in 1962 has awarded a handsome $108 million to more than 50,000 county students, marked its annual gift-giving with a dinner for 245 guests at the SB Museum of History. This year, $8.3 million was awarded to 2,620 students in ceremonies in Santa Maria and […]
Santa Barbara Polo Club opened its 107th season with a bang when former patron Andy Busch and his wife, Kim, threw a bash for his new Folded Hills 15-acre vineyard in Santa Ynez. Andy, whose Grants Farm team used to be a regular feature at the Carpinteria club, bought the 600-acre ranch some years back […]
Foodbank of Santa Barbara County chief executive Erik Talkin has published his first book, Hunger into Health, with a foreword by Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges. The former London filmmaker, who made movies in the 1990s starring Helena Bonham-Carter and Parker Posey, worked in in a community soup kitchen for six years before heading the food bank […]
Montecito uber-philanthropist Sara Miller McCune has received a rare accolade. Sara, founder of Sage Publications in 1965 at the age of just 24, has been awarded the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award for 2018. The peripatetic charity supporter, whose company employs more than 1,500 people in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington, and […]
Santa Barbara Polo Club patron Ben Soleimani is front and center in the latest issue of the society glossy Town & Country. Ben, Iranian-born and London-raised, has been dubbed the “Mayor of Melrose” by the Los Angeles Times, given all the properties he owns on oh-so chic Melrose Avenue, including one of my favorite watering […]
