Anuario Raza Polo Argentino Anuario2017 | Page 232

MG: “Now you have to get the clone to carry its
weight…”
APH: “My grandchildren may play the clones. So
much so that I set them loose with all the other
horses, so that they may become immune with
the same immunity that the others have; the same
natural immunity that mine have; that they may
drink from the same trough and eat the same grass.
Not wrap them up in cotton wool, but instead, raise
them as the real Pureza was raised.”
MG: “How do you, Alberto, feel about the
AACCP at the present time? How do you see
its future? What would you change?
APH: “Carrying on as a breeder, just as I mentioned
that I had been in INTA, and had learned about
Biotechnology, I also founded the Sport Horse
Section within my family Cattle Brokerage firm,
in order to be able to hold horse auctions, which
enabled me to gather together and get to know
about all breeds. Later, when it fell to my lot to
enter into the adventure of founding the AACCP;
when we held the first auctions with the help of
Santiago (Ballester)—for which we asked historic
breeders for two mares for the Selection auction—
we gathered together twelve to fourteen chosen
mares. It was with great pride that those breeders
offered mares from their bloodstock, with the aim
of dispersing their genetics; genetics from the best
breeds. That is where I was able to appreciate all
the breeds, because we had reached that stage in
which one knew the stallions.
AACCP kickoff date was when I held a conference
at the SRA. Santiago also helped me a lot in
finding pedigrees and presenting the classification
of the Thoroughbred Racehorse pedigrees: a total
adventure, quite foolhardy… (laughter). We had five
columns indicating classification by aptitude for
Polo: Chosen; favorable; probable; doubtful and
rejected. This caused quite a stir, because those
that had a stallion that had been rejected were not
hearing what they wanted to hear. In fact, I started
studying a sire by the name of Snow Cat. He was a
230
top seeded stallion in those years; his bloodline was
a byword, with dams carrying Claro blood which
had produced profusely for polo, so we chose all
the Snow Cat offspring. The same occurred with
Southern Halo a few years back. Then we started
to notice that many of the bloodlines seemed to
disappear. I started to follow up on the sires, and in
most cases they were descended from Snow Cat.
MG: “And Southern Halo was a similar case?”
APH: “Well, that’s what I mean, he was a superior
racing stallion, but he didn’t produce that well
for polo. Notwithstanding this, the classification
was a success; we set up a rating formula with
the assistance of a computer. Southern Halo
was rated at 7.30. In time, out of the 30 stallions
chosen, some produced good polo ponies, having
been superior racing stallions.”
MG: “Yes, sometimes different combinations
produced good results.”
APH: “Quite likely in low-class bloodstock it is
good to inject blood with those genetics, but for
a very fixed bloodline, it causes a blood clash and
results in something good. But he is not a very
fruitful stallion.”
BB: “Something similar occurred with Four
Fingers… but there were good Four Fingers
offspring.”
APH: “I set him among the chosen in the first
column. Everyone asked me where I had found
Four Fingers. I had seen his offspring; had
followed-up on about 4 or 5, and although not all
that good-looking, they were sires that transmitted
superior qualities in their offspring.
I presented it as a dynamic proposal, so that
it would be criticized and corrected; so that it
would be enriched. But over the years,—thirty
have already gone by—my proposal hasn’t been
corrected that much, or I should rather say that
we haven’t been able to improve very much on the
original. It was a cutting edge proposal.”