NEWS

This is the story of a horse, but not of any horse. He’s a very special horse who traveled the world and has just won an award at 20 years old. He’s called Mambo, and he just won Best Playing Pony at the Pacific Coast Intra-Circuit Cup Final at Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club in Carpinteria, California, something incredible at his age. He has been playing for 16 years in the main polo locations: Palermo, England, Palm Beach, and now the American West Coast.

Santiago Trotz had to play an exhibition match in Indio and he borrowed this horse. He liked him, bought him, and gave him to his daughter Celina as a gift. He still played him, until, one day, five years later, Mambo’s fate changed. Adolfo Cambiaso needed one more horse for a practice match and he asked to borrow Mambo. After the match, Adolfito was charmed and asked to buy him. The answer was “I can’t, he’s my daughter’s.”

How did the tale end? With Cambiaso calling Celina, who was 10 years old, and asking her permission to borrow him. “Lend him to me for a few years. I will play him, and you can watch him in Palermo. When I don’t play him anymore, I can give him back to you and you can play him then,” he told her. After a decade with huge performances in Palermo, in England with Dubai, and in the U.S. with Valiente, Cambiaso called Santiago in February and told him that, “Well, I’ve had him for a long time, Santi. It’s time for him to go back.” The idea was that he spends his last few years with his owners. What did Mambo do when he came back to the Trotz family? Well, he played, of course, and won an award! This is the story of a horse. Of a very special horse.

“He’s a different kind of horse,” said Santiago Trotz about Mambo, the horse that illustrates our cover. “16 years ago, I borrowed him to play an exhibition match in California. He was 4 years old and was just getting started. When I got on him, he already felt different. He was so tame that I decided to buy him so I could play him. Then I gave him to Celina as a gift and she started to bond with him,” said Trotz.

On CLICKPOLO’s Instagram account you can find a video showing how calm the horse is. “You can pet and touch him. Celina gives him carrots, and he neighs from the stable when she gets close. We started to bond with him and eventually he became my best horse. I played him for five years and I would always be waiting for his chukker just so I could play him because it was a pleasure. The horse was amazing,” explained Trotz.

After his time with Cambiaso, Mambo’s comeback to the family was great. “All the family was happy. I think the horse himself enjoys polo. My 12-year-old daughter Jazmin plays him at kids’ polo and you can tell he follows the ball and the plays. He’s amazing. Luckily, he never got injured and that he has a good heart. He’s been blessed. Mambo is part of my family, like having a special dog that everyone loves. We have Mambo, he’s the family’s pet and we love to have him around.”