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BY michelle lee ribeiro
he concept of star players from different teams
joining up to form a super team has been around
in sports for a long time. Who doesn’t remember the 1992 U.S. Olympic “Dream Team?” With Michael
Jordan, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, Magic
Johnson, Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley playing together on the same side, the United States not only won all
eight games but dominated them to bring home the gold.
Now some in the polo world are in the process of
building a dream team of their own—by cloning the best
performing ponies.
It sounds like a vignette from the future, but leading
players are already making it happen. Mariano Aguerre
received recognition first in April 2010 when he revealed
a clone of his gelding Califa. The genetically identical stallion, produced at Viagen in Texas, was heralded as the
first cloned poly pony in the world, though it was later revealed that Charlie Armstrong had cloned his pony Sage
more than a year earlier.
KT MERRY
THE PERFECT STRING
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In the very near future, at least one
of polo’s top players could take
the field on a super team of perfect
ponies—a.k.a. clones.
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‘
‘
adolfo cambiaso, one
of the first players
to clone his ponies,
could soon hit the
field on a dream team
of super ponies.
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“At the time, we didn’t know about Sage,”
says Nick Manifold, an Australian-born
5-goal player and Aguerre’s partner at Los
Machitos, their polo pony operation in Argentina. “I’m not sure where Charlie cloned
the horse, but he hadn’t told anybody about
it until after Califa was born.”
With the public debut of Califa, however,
a new era in the breeding of top-flight polo
ponies began as a number of interested parties wanted to get in on the ground floor.
It certainly caught the attention of 10-goaler
Adolfo Cambiaso. When the 38-year-old
Argentine—widely considered one of the
world’s best players—had to put down
his prized stallion, Aiken Cura, after the
pony sustained a serious injury at the 2005
Argentine Open, Cambiaso froze some of
Aiken Cura’s cells, just in case. When the
new technology opened up an opportunity,
he partnered with Alan Meeker of the Texas
firm Crestview Genetics in an effort to clone
several of his mounts, including Aiken Cura,
Lapa, Calibri, Cuartetera, Raptor and Small
Person. The foals were born in Texas and
sent to Argentina for rearing (though Cuartetera was actually sold at an Argentine auction, where he fetched $800,000, the most
expensive sale in polo history).
It will be a few years before the clones are
ready for the field since regulations mandate
that ponies be at least 5 years old before they
can play. For now, all one can do is speculate
about how they will perform. While the foals
may look exactly like the originals and share
identical personality traits—Meeker has said
that Lapa’s clones kick and bite, just like their
“meaner than mean” parent pony— that does
not necessarily mean they will be top performers on the field, says Guillermo Buchanan, president of the Veterinary Commission
of the Argentine Association of Polo Pony
Breeders. “Genes account for just 30 percent
of a horse’s performance, with environment,
diet, training and handling accounting for
the rest,” he says.
But Meeker’s hopes are high. He explained to the Financial Times last year that
he weans his foals as soon as possible to minimize the imprint of the mother’s personality.
Additionally, he said, since a clone’s characteristics are known from birth, training can
be optimized from day one.
Still, there are those who aren’t on board
with the trend. Opposers fear cloning could
lead to a reduction of the gene pool. Mina
Davies-Morel, senior lecturer in equine science at Aberystwyth University in Wales,
shared her concern with the Times: “Many
more offspring will be related, and genetic
variation [will be] reduced,” she said. “Twenty years down the line, you could have lost a
lot of the characteristics that might again become popular.”
For now, there are no regulations ban-
—Guillermo Buchanan
ning cloned ponies from playing. Most in the
polo world just see it as the next logical step
in breeding. Techniques like embryo transfer, surrogate mares and artificial insemination have all been used to breed ponies for
years—most of that happening in Argentina,
which has seen a fourfold increase in exported polo ponies between 2006 and 2010.
One thing’s for sure: Pony cloning is big
business. It costs well over $100,000 to produce one clone, never mind the additional
costs involved in rearing and training. And
with each player requiring at least a dozen
ponies—and often many more—millions
could be spent by anyone trying to create the
perfect string.
It seems to be worth the money to many
players, as the clones keep coming. One
eager player recently requested 100 copies
of the same horse, but companies like Kheiron—which is booked solid through half of
2014—can clone just 10-20 horses a year.
The attack of the clones may well be coming, but Meeker, for one, vows to do his part
to keep the integrity of the game intact. “The
goal of cloning is not to flood polo with identical competition horses but to improve the
genetic base for polo breeding programs
worldwide,” he told the Times.
In fact, Meeker invited the Argentine executive who bought Cuartetera’s clone to
form a partnership with Crestview instead of
cloning the horse himself. Although the executive was offered $2 million for another
Cuartetera, he partnered with Meeks and
the two pledged not to sell any more clones
of the same horse. Instead, they will channel some clones to competition and sell
the ovules and sperm of others to breeders.
“The idea is not to have games where four
Cuarteteras are playing four Cuarteteras,”
says Meeker.
It’s possible we may see clones playing
at IPC as early as 2015. But while Cambiaso
brims with excitement at the prospect of riding his dream team, he remains mum about
his clones’ talents. “It’s too early to tell,” he
says with a smile. 
mariano aguerre (LEFT) cloned
his gelding, califa, in 2010.
LILA PHOTO
LILA PHOTO
Genes account for just 30 percent of a horse’s performance, with
environment, diet, training and handling accounting for the rest.
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