By Mike May
Polo is one of the most tradition-rich sports in the world. In fact, there are very few sports where the legacy of playing the sport is intentionally handed down from one generation of a family to the next. There are many examples of polo families where the sport is played at a high level by more than one family member, including Argentina’s Cambiaso family, which includes two of the current best players in the world.
While based in Argentina, the Cambiasos usually spend the winter season here in Wellington. The patriarch of the family is 10-goaler Adolfo Cambiaso, 49. He’s a brilliant, world-class polo player and has been for many years — and many of his best days on the polo field with a mallet in his right hand are still in his future.
Two of his children — daughter Mia Cambiaso and son Adolfo “Poroto” Cambiaso — are also accomplished polo-playing professionals. All three will be playing on the fields in Wellington during the current winter polo season. And even if you’re not at a game, you easily might see one of them shopping in the aisles at Publix over the next few months.
Considered by many the top polo player in the world today, Adolfo’s list of championship wins is impressive, to say the least. Those polo championships include many Argentine Opens, a number of U.S. Open Polo Championships, USPA Gold Cups, and the Queen’s Cup (U.K.).
Adolfo’s competitive career started before he was a teenager. At age 12, he earned his one-goal handicap. Since then, his career has soared, and he continues to play the sport at a world-class level. At the age of 21, Adolfo established his own polo club called La Dolfina, which then proceeded to win three straight Argentine Opens.
In the minds of many Argentinian sports fans, Adolfo is as highly regarded as a polo player as other Argentinian sports heroes, such as World Cup soccer champions Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona, four-time major tennis champ Guillermo Vilas, rugby union great Hugo Porta and five-time Formula 1 Grand Prix World Championship driver Juan Manuel Fangio. Any picture of Argentina’s greatest sporting champions would be incomplete without Adolfo Cambiaso.
In addition to being a world-class player, Adolfo is getting more involved in horse breeding and cloning.
As for Poroto, 19, he has also achieved similar praise as one of polo’s rising greats, and often can be found ahead of his father in current rankings. Poroto has already risen to the rarefied realm of being one of polo’s global superstars and a living legend in his own right. Poroto’s major polo victories include the 2020 English Gold Cup, the 2021 U.S. Open Polo Championship and the 129th Argentine Open. At that specific Argentine Open, Poroto became the youngest 10-goaler, which broke the existing record established years before by his father.
Looking back, Poroto was perhaps destined to become a successful and accomplished polo player since he was born during the 2005 Argentine Open. During a qualifying match in that Argentine Open, Adolfo’s wife María Vázquez went into labor. So, as you would expect, Adolfo left the field and headed to the hospital to be there for Poroto’s birth. For Poroto, that’s called being “born into polo.”
When Poroto began playing, his father was also his teammate. Clearly, Poroto learned how to play the sport from the best in the business. In 2023, Poroto finally won his first major title without his father on the same team. It was the USPA Gold Cup in Wellington.
Many polo pundits now agree that both Adolfo and Poroto share that “killer instinct,” which is the foundation for their joint drive to win.
One of the most entertaining moments in their competitive careers occurred in 2024 in Wellington when Adolfo’s team (Valiente) met Poroto’s team (La Dolfina), facing one another in the final of all three Gauntlet of Polo events: the C.V. Whitney Cup, the USPA Gold Cup and the U.S. Open Polo Championship. This was the first time in history that the same two teams met in the final of all three events in the same year. In all three finales, Adolfo was ranked the No. 1 player in the world, while Poroto was ranked as the world’s No. 2 player.
Well, Adolfo’s team won the C.V. Whitney Cup. Then, Poroto’s responded by taking the USPA Gold Cup. That left the U.S. Open as the proverbial rubber game of the series. Poroto and his teammates were a little sharper in the U.S. Open final, and La Dolina prevailed, 10-7.
Polo broadcaster Kenny Rice said that having a father-son dual in the Gauntlet of Polo was historic.
“The Cambiasos are one-two in the world. That’s amazing,” Rice said. “There has never been in any sport a father-son be the absolute best in the world, one-two.”
Adolfo’s feelings for his son are laced with love and respect, as he truly relished the chance to play against his very talented son.
“As a father, it’s not easy playing against your son. He knows how to manage his game,” Adolfo said. “I think Poroto is growing a lot as a player and as a person.”
Poroto had similar sentiments about his dad. “It is always very difficult to play against me and also for him, it is very difficult to play against a son,” Poroto added.
As for older sister Mia Cambiaso, she’s climbing up the polo ladder, too. At age 14, she had a two-goal handicap and was a teammate of her father in the Pilará Mix Cup. As a member of Hawaii Polo Life, she helped lead the team to winning the U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship in 2022.
Meanwhile, the youngest Cambiaso child, Myla, also plays the sport. Clearly, the tradition of playing polo at a high level is alive and well in the Cambiaso family — and it will continue to be for years to come.
