“Twenty five years ago I came here for the first time,” says Maximiliano Fernández. “There was nothing.” Now the area between the towns of Pilar and General Rodríguez, a strip of land 50km west of Buenos Aires, is packed with polo clubs, stables and estates. Every scrap of farmland is being bought up and transformed into pristine(崭新的，一尘不染的) polo fields. Argentina’s polo world is “a bubble” within the country, says Mr Fernández, who manages a team: it has its own economy. And that economy is world-beating(世界领先的，举世无双的).
“二十五年前我第一次来到这里，”马克西米利亚诺·费尔南德斯说。“那时这里什么都没有。”如今，皮拉尔和罗德里格斯将军镇之间的地区——布宜诺斯艾利斯以西50公里的一片土地——布满了马球俱乐部、马厩和庄园。每一寸农田都被买下，改造成 pristine 的马球场。阿根廷的马球世界是这个国家里的“一个泡沫”，管理着一支球队的费尔南德斯先生说：它有自己的经济。而这个经济是世界领先的。
Polo—hockey on horseback—is purportedly(据称，据传) the world’s oldest team sport. An early version was played in Persia in the sixth century BC. The modern game was formalised(使正式化，使规范化) by British officers in India and then galloped around the empire. It became a sport of kings, taken up by elites in Europe, the United States and more recently the Gulf states. Yet Argentina came to dominate the global scene, even as the rest of its economy was in a shambles(一片混乱，一团糟).
马球——马背上的曲棍球——据称是世界上最古老的团队运动。早在公元前六世纪，波斯就出现了早期版本。现代马球运动由英国军官在印度正式确立，随后传遍整个大英帝国。它成为一项王者运动，被欧洲、美国以及最近的海湾国家的精英们所接受。然而，阿根廷却主导了全球马球舞台，即便其经济其他部分一片混乱。
Like any fledgling(新兴的，初出茅庐的) industry, it helps to have the raw materials. Horses had long thrived on the Pampas, central Argentina’s vast grasslands. They attracted gauchos(高乔人，阿根廷牛仔), the local version of cowboys. Polo, when it arrived, fit naturally with the abundance of cheap horses, skilled riders, flat land and agreeable weather. Argentine players were soon reckoned(被认为，估计) the world’s best, and remain so: 27 of the top 30 professionals today are from the country. They sustain a service-based economy(支撑一个服务型经济) in which rich foreigners hire them to help win trophies.
像任何新兴行业一样，拥有原材料是很有帮助的。马匹长期以来在阿根廷中部的广阔草原潘帕斯草原上繁衍生息。它们吸引了高乔人，即当地的牛仔。马球传入后，自然契合了当地丰富的廉价马匹、熟练的骑手、平坦的土地和宜人的气候。阿根廷球员很快被认为是世界最好的，并且至今如此：如今排名前30的职业球员中有27位来自该国。他们支撑起一个以服务为基础的经济，富有的外国人雇佣他们来帮助赢得奖杯。
Less tape more ribbons
少些繁文缛节，多些荣誉