By Sarah Eakin
Adolfo Cambiaso took his 10th victory in the C.V. Whitney Cup as La Dolfina/Tamera defeated Coca Cola 11-10 in the final of the first tournament in the Gauntlet of Polo at the National Polo Center in Wellington on Sunday, Feb. 23.
“I’m going to be 50 years old,” said Cambiaso, whose milestone birthday comes up on April 15. “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 seven-goal player Julian De Lusarreta called it before the game 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.”
Cambiaso 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 out of Carla, a mare that Adolfo bought from Roberto Gonzalez, and one of Adolfo’s best stallions, Dolfina Guitarrero. She won Best Playing Pony in the 2024 C.V. Whitney Cup final and repeated the feat this year. “She has been one of my best mares this year,” Cambiaso 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 as a result of a premature celebration between Cambiaso and Matt Coppola, setting Coca-Cola’s Polito 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 Cambiaso 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 Coppola 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,” Cambiaso said. “He did really well, pretty much the whole tournament. He did amazing playing against higher goal players.”
Underway currently at NPC is the USPA Gold Cup. Learn more at www.nationalpolocenter.com.
Read more by equestrian writer Sarah Eakin at www.paperhorsemedia.com.
