One of polo's most well known faces, Eduardo Heguy, is not only amongst the world's top polo players having reached a 10-goal handicap, he's a fanatic about breeding the beautiful horses that took his sporting career to the top level.

Known to many as 'El Ruso' (the Russian), the nickname was stuck from his early years of sporting bright blonde baby locks. Eduardo has three brothers, Pepe, Nachi and Tomas. All four siblings share the same passion for polo and horses as their father Alberto Pedro Heguy. A polo legend in his own right, Alberto Pedro reached 10 goals at 33 years of age, played the Argentine Open for 28 years and won an incredible 17 times. Still a keen horseman and fully qualified veterinarian, he continues to play family polo on the farm at 73 years of age.

The Heguy's originated from Vasco French origin. Eduardo's great grandfather moved to Argentina in 1879, settling down in the quiet town of Intendente Alvear, La Pampa, which remains their base today.

Their grandfather's original farm, Santo Domingo is now owned by Nachi and is within riding distance of Pepe's farm Gueya Guey and Eduardo's breeding farm, La Gitana, named after his best mare in his first Argentine Open in 1985. Eduardo, his wife Paz and their children live closer to the town center at a smaller farm 'La Paz'.

The vast flat, open countryside of La Pampa makes it the ideal location for polo fields and to breed horses, hence Alvear has a thriving polo community. It is home to the Indios Chapaleufu Polo Club and also Eduardo's cousins Bautista, Marcos and Horcacio.

Competing in the Indios Chapaleufu II shirts for many years Eduardo, Nachi and Pepe all achieved the 10-goal rating and are regular faces at the Argentine Open winning the prestigious title four times. It takes tremendous skill and years of practice to compete and win 40-goal polo, but most importantly, the horses are paramount and the Heguy's are more often than not mounted on homebred's wherever they play around the world.

Eduardo recollects good times playing in the USA. For 10 years, from 1986 to 2006, he played for several organizations including Calumet Farm, Isla Carol and Orchard Hill and had around 14 horses. His most famous horse in the States was a gelding called Caminito, while mares such as V8 have since retired and flown back to Argentina for breeding where they have been very influential to his bloodlines. Eduardo says he is tempted to clone V8 as she's approaching 30 and she's been such a fantastic mother producing outstanding offspring such as Vasca Donna and Vasca Enigma, a mare in his current string.

Unparalleled responsiveness combined with power, agility, speed, a good mouth and calm temperament—very few polo ponies have all these essential traits and even fewer are exceptional enough to play the Argentine Open.

It should be no surprise with today's understanding of genetics that the majority of these ponies reaching the pinnacle of their career are a result of well established and carefully planned polo breeding programs such as Eduardo's.

The Argentine Polo Pony Breeders Association (AACCP), founded in 1984 had the forethought to create a modern breed. Unlike the thoroughbred industry they allow the use of the latest reproduction techniques such as artificial insemination (AI), embryo transfer (ET) and cloning. Embryo transfer has had a huge impact on the Polo Argentino Breed over the last 20 years. Embryos only taken from mares that are markedly superior for polo have rapidly improved polo genetics, and trends have quickly emerged proving that bloodlines have a huge significance when it comes down to producing polo superstars.

Embryo transfer is now common place in the big polo organizations breeding programs. The latest trend is cloning, although only on a very small scale so far due to the costs involved. Embryo sexing is also becoming common practice as often mares are more desirable for their faster learning ability and courage on the polo field.

Producing around 90-100 embryo foals each year Eduardo is one of the most prolific polo pony breeders in Argentina. With around 600 horses of varying ages at one time at his breeding farm La Gitana, his 'domadors' (horse breakers) are kept busy year round, not only starting the young horses but also keeping a check on all the foals, branding, worming, hoof trimming, weaning, and all the other dayto- day jobs required to run a horse farm on this scale.

Eduardo frequently visits the farm to take notes and watch the 'pilots' (trainers) work the recently started 3-year-olds and gauge their potential. He can make a pretty good educated guess having played their mothers, grandmothers and most of the sires as to how they will turn out. A true horseman, he knows almost every horse by sight, their breeding and where they played.

Each horse can also be identified by a vertical number brand on quarters by the right-hand side of the tail. This is required by the AACCP (Asociacion Argentina de Criadores de Caballos de Polo) and a DNA swab is also taken from the embryo foals as both forms of identification prove the foals parentage. Eduardo also uses an alphabetical naming system since the year 2000 so that he can easily work out the horse's age by the letter corresponding to the year they were born. The prefix Vasco, from his French ancestry, is also given to all his home-bred foals.

Significant mares that formed the base for his breed were Polo Pureza, Polo Purita and Bamba. Foaled in 1988 Polo Pureza played the Argentine Open with Pepe for 14 years and due to embryo transfer allowing the mothers to continue playing, she was the first mare in the Open to play at the same time as her daughter Polo Bailanta and then in 2002, also with her grandson Vasco Chamuyo, a small playing stallion, described by Eduardo as 'a little machine'.

Many of the Heguy horses have a particular stamp; beautiful heads, compact bodies and extremely tough, some playing the top level for years such as Eduardo's best mare Bailanta who played the Argentine Open until she was 16 years old.

Although Eduardo introduces new blood into his breed with stallions from Ellerstina and La Dolfina lines, Pepe's stallion, Polo Nevadito, originally bred by their father, had a huge impact on their breeding programs and is still one of the most prominent sires of the Polo Argentino Breed.

Nevadito has produced 60-plus offspring to play the Open to date and he has more youngsters coming thorough. Nevadito proved himself playing the Open with Pepe, Nachi and Milo Fernandez Araujo for several years, retired only to stand at stud where he won the Stallion Ranking of the AACCP from 2003 to 2009 inclusive and was named Grand Champion Stallion by the Association of Argentine Polo in 1996 and 1998.

Nevadito has been a valuable asset to the Heguy's breeding programme along with Polo Sol Puro, another significant stallion by Polo Pureza and El Sol. New colts showing potential or those from particular lines that Eduardo thinks will benefit his breed in the future are kept as stallions, sometimes played to prove their ability, such as Vasco Faraon who won the Grand Champion prize at La Rural in 2008 and went on to play the Open, while others with good breeding that perform well in chukkas may go straight to stud.

Hard work and quality is complemented by winning significant titles such as Criador del Año in 2007 (breeder of the year). Eduardo's horses have also won numerous prizes throughout his career, the most recent in 2012 Vasca Estrella and the stallion Vasco Hinitus both took Reserve Champion in their categories at the Tortugas Polo Pony Show.

At home in La Pampa during the summer months the days are mostly spent playing polo on the young horses. It is a full-time job turning 100 youngsters into polo ponies each year. A horse addict, he would keep more if he could but it becomes a question of space.

Very hands-on, Eduardo is up early every morning to drink 'mate' with the grooms, he'll discuss how the horses are coming along and either help with the riding or visit La Gitana, then late afternoon, once the intense January heat eases up they play around eight chukkas, either at La Paz or at his brothers farms.

The surplus horses from extensive breeding do not go to waste, bar the top few that reach Eduardo's Open string all are for sale, even some of the stallions. His pleasure is to see these magnificent horses bring other's enjoyment and success from playing well bred horses. Every season he invites up and coming players to help train the huge number of horses and also to learn and improve their polo.

Fran Elizalde and Nachi Du Plessis are among many that have been 'mentored' by Eduardo and have already achieved great things in their polo careers with Fran due to play in the Chapaleufu team in 2013 Argentine Open.

It won't be long before the next generation of Heguy's will make use of this horsepower. Eduardo's eldest son Cruz is fast becoming a competent player at 10 years of age and the second youngest, Pedro, at just 4 years old hoons around on a Shetland pony unaided! Eduardo says they cherish the time spent at home but they also have many fond memories of the States and would always return for one more season of competitive polo.

Photos and words by Alice Gipps