Tag archives: polo

Weatherproof Winterland
By Richard Mineards   |   December 6, 2018

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 […]

Justin Time: Klentner Ranch Wins
By Richard Mineards   |   September 6, 2018

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 […]

Golden Holden
By Richard Mineards   |   August 30, 2018

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. […]

Labor of Love: Studios Open for Tour
By Steven Libowitz   |   August 30, 2018

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 […]

Lady of the Rings
By Richard Mineards   |   July 26, 2018

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 […]

Baker’s Glide and Joy
By Richard Mineards   |   June 28, 2018

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 […]

On the Air
By Richard Mineards   |   June 7, 2018

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 […]

On the Money
By Richard Mineards   |   May 31, 2018

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 […]

High Horse
By Richard Mineards   |   May 17, 2018

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 […]

Talkin Business
By Richard Mineards   |   May 3, 2018

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 […]

One for the Books
By Richard Mineards   |   April 5, 2018

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 […]

Ben There, Done That
By Richard Mineards   |   December 7, 2017

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 […]