Zimbabwe vs Zambia 2017
For the first time in many years and thanks to our friend Kelly Krynauw the Zimbabwe ladies headed off to Leopards Hill Club in Zambia to reignite our annual ZimZam tour, but a huge thanks to their sponsors for making it possible:
ZimFlex
ORCA WATER
Our ladies, Sophie Sargeant, Polly Michael, Kirsten Swan, Alison Coetzee , Nikki Hopgood, Sonia Mansfield and their coach Danie Swan always knew this would be a tough test series as we would be riding borrowed horses against some of the best ladies in the world. They arrived on Wednesday evening to some delicious food from Ronel and a few drinks followed by an action packed Thursday with shopping in the morning and the pool draw and riding in the afternoon.
'We knew a few of the horses from playing Zambia in the past and obviously through chatting to friends there but unfortunately we got the pool where we didn't know much about the ponies. With a very limited time to decide on horses and trying to accommodate the chukka limit on horses Danie had a plan.
We always knew the first game would be tough as we didn't have a proper feel of the horses but it was a closely contended match'
The chukka scores as follows with teh sections staying the same all weekend:
1st Section: Alison, Nikki and Sonia
2nd Section: Sophie, Polly and Kirsten
First chukka 🇿🇲6 - 🇿🇼1 Second chukka 🇿🇲8 - 🇿🇼3 Third chukka 🇿🇲9 - 🇿🇼8 Fourth chukka 🇿🇲12 - 🇿🇼10 Fifth chukka 🇿🇲16 - 🇿🇼13 Sixth chukka 🇿🇲21 - 🇿🇼13
As you can see we had a slow start and slow finish and we left ourselves with a lot of work to do in the second test.
On the second day the ladies came out with a lot to prove after the day before- all giving it their all, with Danie giving it horns from the sideline too they managed to do it! The two's played their socks off on the hardest pick of the horses!
First chukka 🇿🇲 2 - 🇿🇼 4 Sedond chukka 🇿🇲 6 - 🇿🇼 7 Third chukka 🇿🇲 10 - 🇿🇼 10
Fourth chukka 🇿🇲 14 - 🇿🇼 13 Fifth chukka 🇿🇲 17 - 🇿🇼 17 Sixth chukka 🇿🇲 18 - 🇿🇼 20
On the final day the ladies were in good spirits after walking their horses out in the morning with everything in order but unfortunately a hour or so before the game we lost 2 of our top horses- no excuses but its always tough going back to the drawing board. The ladies played some top class polocrosse but unfortunately got pipped to the post by the Zambians who showed some great skill and was fantastic to see Kelly and Audrey on such good form.
First chukka 🇿🇲 3 - 🇿🇼 3 Second chukka 🇿🇲 5 - 🇿🇼 4 Third chukka 🇿🇲 8 - 🇿🇼 6 Fourth chukka 🇿🇲 11 - 🇿🇼 6 Fifth Chukka 🇿🇲 14 - 🇿🇼 9 Sixth chukka 🇿🇲17 - 🇿🇼 10
It was a great series and we would like to extend a huge thank you to Conor, the Watsons and Zambian Association for looking after our ladies, and congrats to Nikki Hopgood on clinching best number 2.
Best horse voted by Zimbabwe: Watch Me of Graham Rae's
Best Player voted by Zimbabwe- Kelly Krynauw
