Hanalei Bay Wins Spreckles Cup : Polo: Gracidas prove to be the right ingredient for team, which is aiming for the U.S. Open title.

Memo Gracida will look you in the face and, acting the straight man, tell you there’s no such thing as a sure thing.

OK, but don’t let the humility fool you. Gracida, when teamed with his brother, Carlos, provide a close facsimile.

Both are 10-goal players in polo’s worldwide handicapping system, and both helped Hanalei Bay win, 13-8, Sunday over Fish Creek to claim the county’s prestigious Spreckels Cup.

With the victory over the team from Calgary, Canada, Hanalei Bay now is targeting the U.S. Open, which begins Oct. 21 at the Eldorado Polo Club in Indio.

The man behind Hanalei Bay--named after the Hawaiian location where he wants to eventually settle--is real estate developer Ron Bonaguidi, who has sponsored and tried to assemble the best team possible.

Sunday’s victory was especially sweet for Bonaguidi because it came in his home town at the Rancho Santa Fe Polo Club, where he is a member. He took kindly to the pats on the back, but he also indicated this was just one step toward the U.S. Open championship.

His eyes are pointed toward Indio.

“For the next six weeks, this is going to be the most important thing in my life,” said Bonaguidi, a one-goal caliber player. “I’ll probably spend every conscious minute playing polo or thinking about it.”

He, the Gracidas and Julio Arellano (a five-goal player) put together six chukker’s worth of polo that delighted a crowd of about 1,800 against a team that boasted a 10-goal player itself, Owen Rinehart, and a 25-goal rating.

Rinehart wasn’t conceding this loss--nor the 16-13 loss a week earlier in the Rancho Valencia Cup in the county’s two highest-rated matches ever--26 goals--spelled doom for Fish Creek in the U.S. Open. He was riding his second-string ponies, and both teams conceded they weren’t going full tilt.

Not until the final two chukkers, when the Gracida brothers got caught up in the heat of competition.

‘You could tell they opened the game up, some,” Rinehart said.

Tied at 6 through four chukkers, Hanalei Bay held a 4-0 scoring advantage in the fifth. Carlos Gracida scored three times, Memo scored once. They finished with four and five goals, respectively.

“This (Hanalei Bay) team is the team to beat in the Open,” Rinehart said. “We’re lucky to play these guys for practice.”

Bonaguidi has done a good job of making sure Hanalei Bay is the team to beat. He competed with Carlos Gracida (West Palm Beach, Fla.) in the 1990 U.S. Open, losing to a team that had Memo Gracida (also West Palm Beach) and Arellano (Mexico). Now they’re all on the same team.

The Gracidas are undefeated in their six U.S. Opens while playing together.

“I tried to assemble the most qualified players for their positions, regardless of what part of the world they live in or whether they had beaten me in past games,” Bonaguidi said.

With Memo Gracida winning nine of the past 10 Opens and Carlos winning the past six it was the surest combination Bonaguidi could find.

Polo Notes

Enrique Zavaleta scored three goals, including one with 52 seconds remaining to give the Rancho Santa Fe Polo Club a 4-3 victory over the Aspen club in the celebrity match. Zavaleta, one of two pros on the four-man team, is a five-goal player. The other pro on the winning team was Brian Boudreau, a zero-goal player. The winning celebrities were Grammy Award-winning singer Juice Newton and Jeff Melman, the producer of Beverly Hills 90210 and Night Court.

The celebrity on the Aspen team was actor Doug Sheehan of Knots Landing. Playing with him were Rancho Santa Fe Polo Club president Kit Sickels (minus 1). The pros were Harry Collins (0) and Duncan Ellis (5). Ellis scored twice and Sheehan once. ...

The Fish Creek team awoke at 4 a.m. to fly from Calgary to San Diego Sunday morning after participating in a tournament fund-raiser, the Hunt Ball.