Mohammed Al Habtoor and his VistaJet Bombardier team fought hard to dethrone defending champions Julius Baer – led by his brother Rashid – to lift the Julius Baer Beach Polo Cup at Skydive Dubai last night.

In the battle of the Habtoors, siblings Mohammed and Rashid were respectively joined by their sons Habtoor and Khalaf, who together with Argentine high-goalers Guillermo Cuitino and Juan Cruz Guevara delivered a thrilling finale to the two-day spectacle. But it was VistaJet Bombardier who ran away with an 8-4 victory over the title sponsors.

“This is my fifth time playing the Beach Polo Cup. I won the first three and lost last year and I said ‘we have to get it back’, and that’s what we did,” a visibly exhausted Mohammed Al Habtoor told Sport360° after the win.

“The team did very well and I think we deserved to win as you can see from the score line, we won by quite a big margin. 

“We had the ball most of the time. We missed maybe 10 goals, myself maybe five.”

The prodigious Guevara had put Julius Baer into the final after scoring an impressive 11 goals for his team on Friday.

But the Argentine was contained by VistaJet Bombardier last night, thanks to the efforts of Cuitino and the much-improved Habtoor Al Habtoor, whose two goals came at crucial times during the match.

Cuitino and Guevara traded goals in the opening chukka but it was VistaJet Bombardier who went into the break with a 2-1 lead. Guevara pulled one back for Julius Baer to draw level in the second, but once again Cuitino fought off his compatriot to put VistaJet back in the lead.

Mohammed Al Habtoor’s men found their stride in the third chukka as Cuitino converted a penalty and Habtoor Al Habtoor scored his first goal of the tournament to give VistaJet a 5-2 advantage.

Despite a brace from Guevara in the final chukka, Cuitino and Habtoor were on target once again to bring the Cup back to Mohammed Al Habtoor, on the 10th anniversary of the event.

“We have six [members] in the family who play polo. Four of us were playing today. We’ve played a lot against each other; me and my brother (Rashid), and I think when I play against him I feel more competition, more challenge,” said Mohammed.

Cuitino, who deservedly was named the Cadillac Most Valuable Player of the Tournament, was thrilled with the win and was particularly impressed with the young Habtoor, saying: “We are happy. We had a great game today. I think Habtoor played amazing, he scored a couple of amazing goals in very important moments and that helped us a lot.”

Habtoor added: “I really expected to do much better today, from my part. I really enjoy competing in this event. “I wait for this every year and I’m glad I scored a couple of goals to help my team win today.”

Meanwhile, Julius Baer team patron Rashid Al Habtoor was disappointed to lose the Cup but said the fact that it was still in the family was a silver lining.

He added: “We tried our best. This ball is very tricky and it’s not that easy to score from one side of the arena because the wind keeps changing its direction.”