Cambiaso stares down his 50th birthday with a C.V. Whitney Cup win
Adolfo Cambiaso took his 10th victory in the C.V. Whitney Cup as La Dolfina/Tamera defeated Coca Cola 11-10 in the opening high-goal tournament of the season, and first contest in the Gauntlet of Polo at the National Polo Center.
“I’m going to be 50 years old,” said Adolfo, whose milestone birthday comes up on April 15 and who was first granted a 10-goal handicap when he was 19 years old. “It’s not easy to be 50 years old and compete with these guys. Every final game for me is a bonus right now. So I’m trying to learn how to enjoy it.”
Gillian Johnston’s Coca Cola came to the finals with a defeat of La Dolfina/Tamera to their name, having won the opening league encounter 17-13, but they were not about to rest on their laurels. Coca Cola’s seven-goal player Julian De Lusarreta called it before the start of the match, when he said: “It’s not going to be the same game as the first one. They’ve been playing much better and always, a final against Cambiaso is going to be different and tough.”
Adolfo brought out his homebred mare Dolfina Carola in the fifth chukker when Alejandro Poma’s La Dolfina/Tamera pulled ahead to lead 10-7 going into the sixth. Carola’s breeding is impressive as she is out of Carla – a mare that Adolfo bought from Roberto Gonzalez – and by one of Adolfo’s best stallions Dolfina Guittarero. She won Best Playing Pony in the 2024 C.V. Whitney final and repeated the feat this year. “She’s been one of my best mares this year,” Adolfo said. “Last year she was a bit green and this year she made a step up to be a really good horse.”
Coca Cola came back within a goal to set up a nail-biting finish after the umpires awarded a technical penalty against La Dolfina/Tamera as a result of a premature celebration, setting Pieres up with the opportunity to push the match into overtime. “We gave them a chance to shoot on goal with four seconds to go,” said Adolfo, of the 60-yard missed penalty. “We were a bit unlucky in the last play of the game. It was a foul and then they gave a technical against us, which I didn’t think was right to be a technical when we were celebrating.”
The win gave USA’s Matt his third C.V. Whitney Cup title, having won it for the first time in 2011, at the age of 15, playing for Lechuza Caracas. “I think Matt Coppola had a great game today,” Adolfo said. “He did really well, pretty much the whole tournament. He did amazing playing against higher goal players.”
Also turning heads in this season’s high goal is 17-year old Argentinian Lorenzo Chavanne, who lines up for Coca Cola, playing for the first time in the US high goal. In the past he only watched from the sidelines and being on the Sunday field at the National Polo Center, proved emotional for him. “It makes me very proud to be playing here,” he said.
Pilot is the only team to have won the Gauntlet of Polo with victories in the C.V. Whitney Cup, USPA Gold Cup and US Open Polo Championship in 2019. Adolfo has won the Triple Crown of Polo in Argentina three times in a row – as well as a string of other polo accolades – but the Gauntlet of Polo has yet to be checked off his list.
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