The father and son polo stars Adolfo and Poroto Cambiaso on competing against each other and playing with the royals
Adolfo
Poroto was born in 2005 while I was in the middle of a polo game. I’d left my wife, María, with a friend of mine at the farm where we live, an hour from Buenos Aires. He would be able to drive her to the hospital, just in case anything happened. I was playing a qualifier at the time, so I couldn’t miss the game, could I?
During the match her waters broke, but my team-mates didn’t tell me at first. In the middle of the fourth chukka, one of the players told me María was in hospital. I said to him, “Give me the phone.” I was still on my horse. I spoke to the doctor and said, “Doctor, how much time do I have?” Not much more than 20 minutes, he said. The playing field was ten minutes from the hospital, so I played one more chukka and then I went. I made it on time.
María’s reaction? Oh, she didn’t know that I’d spoken with the doctor like that. She would have killed me — can you imagine? But it became a funny family story.
Poroto is 19 and my second child — Mia, 22, is my oldest, and Myla, 14, my youngest. All three play polo but I don’t really come from a polo family. My mother played at the weekends but my father, another Adolfo, was a championship surfer, a South American champion. Me, I’ve always loved horses, and so do my kids. It’s like they were born on a horse. But not my wife. She’s scared of horses. Even today, she comes with us wherever we play but she can’t watch us.
My girls are not professional, so they don’t get paid, but they still play a lot. They love it. Only my son gets paid. You see, the female game is not as big as the men’s game — yet. We are working on that.
I’ve played with Prince Harry in the US. Last year they were in Palm Beach, Florida — he came with Meghan to watch a match during the US Open. We always share those moments around polo. I believe he is a great ambassador for the game — just like the rest of his family. In fact I’ve played with all three of them, William and Carlos, your king, too. The best? Oh, Carlos. He is really pretty good.
People think polo is very glamorous, full of playboys and, yes, royals. But this I can tell you is not the reality. The reality is being in a barn with horses, Monday to Monday, working all the time, no time off. Sure, you see the King in the stands, but this is not how we live. How we live is on a farm. It’s hard work.
My wife and I decided we would home school our children, so we could travel the world with polo. We would spend three months of the year in Argentina — where they did go to regular school — but otherwise we had a teacher fly with us wherever we went, to Palm Beach, to England, Spain, Santa Barbara in California, then back to Argentina. Study in the morning, polo in the afternoon. This means we are always together, always very close. We are a team.
My wife is our psychologist, pretty much. I’m good with the girls — they tell me about everything, including boyfriends — while Poroto goes to my wife to talk. It’s a good arrangement.
Poroto was always good on a horse, a natural. He always knew he wanted to be professional. People wonder how I feel about my son’s success. He has beaten all my records. He won the Gold Cup when he was 14, I won it when I was 17. He won the Argentine Open at 17 — I was 19. In recent years we’ve been playing on opposing teams. I’m very proud of him, but when we play against each other I want to beat him.
If we are not playing polo we are playing golf, or we are visiting my father to go surfing. We like competition and we love sport.
Today, in Argentina, María and I live with our youngest, Myla, while Poroto and Mia rent another house for themselves. But their place is nearby, five minutes away. It’s how we like it.
Poroto makes his debut, aged 14, alongside his father in Argentina’s Triple Crown tournament, 2020MATIAS CALLEJO
Poroto
My earliest memories of my father are at the farm, and always with horses. Also that we were flying everywhere with him for polo matches, to England, to America. I remember him winning everything.
I like to compete too. Growing up, I played every sport. I loved football but I was better at polo — horses are the best animals in the world. Being on a horse, for me, is natural, like maybe being on a bicycle for you is natural. I’d come home from school and get straight on a horse.
My father was my trainer and, yes, he was quite a hard trainer. He wanted us to do things that were not normal, like he could do, and to be better than anyone else. But he is not so hard any more, now that my sisters and I play all the time. Now we are more like team-mates.
I started playing professionally at 13, 14. That is not typical — it’s young — but it was good for me to turn professional and to make money for myself. For 14 years old, it was very good money. My parents put it in a bank for me, but as soon as I got to spend it, I spent it on horses — what else?
I think I knew I didn’t have a normal life, but I prefer it like this. Normal life for me happens when I go back to Argentina and spend time with my friends. Otherwise, all I want to do is play polo.
Playing against my father is great, but it’s important for me to win. We have played against each other in the US Open two years running. I won the first time, which you see in the Netflix documentary series Polo that Harry and Meghan made, and he was not happy. When he won the following year, I was not happy. If I have to lose, I prefer to lose against my father. He is the best player in the world. I am not as good as him — yet. He does things no other polo player can. He was thinking of retiring five years ago, at 45, but his body is even stronger now. We both work hard not to get injured.
We do have outside interests — I still like football — but we are very much a polo family. We get together for dinner and talk about the games we play. We travel together, spend Christmas together — although last year I was with friends for new year. That was strange, but also good, I think. It’s nice to be with friends from time to time. But we always come back together.
Adolfo Cambiaso won a historic ninth Gold Cup last month at Cowdray Park Polo Club, West Sussex, where matches continue until September 21
Strange habits
Adolfo on Poroto
He likes to line things up neatly — his bag, his phone — everything in its place
Poroto on Adolfo
He doesn’t have any strange habits. He doesn’t believe in luck. He believes in hard work and routine