INSIDE THE TENT
New Play in the Queen’s Cup Final: the Vulcan Mind Meld
By Darlene Ricker
When the curtain went up on the Queen’s Cup final Saturday, Adolfo Cambiaso and Juan Martín Nero swept onto center stage and stayed in character for nearly two hours. Cambiaso, as always, played the consummate front man—not just because he wears No. 1, but he has the sizzle of a rock star. Nero was cast as his foil: the strong, silent type with smoldering good looks (to which he seems oblivious) and moves from the back that can stop a freight train. No wonder at last year’s Argentine Open they referred to him as “The Wall.”
Inside the tent, however, those distinctions dissolve faster than an antacid tab dropped into a glass of water. If you look beyond Cambiaso’s staccato speech and Nero’s measured meter, it’s clear they are reading from the same script. At halftime Saturday they focused on act two of a thriller that swirled around La Indiana’s chances of recovering from a five-goal deficit. No one could have imagined the plot twist to come. La Indiana made four consecutive goals in the fourth and tied the score in the sixth (which the announcer anointed as “One of the biggest comebacks since Lazarus got off his bed and walked!”). In the final seconds Cambiaso, in his classic swashbuckling style, broke the spell with the winning goal.
Meanwhile at halftime, the Dubai tent looked like a scene straight out of “Star Trek.” Nero and Cambiaso were in the grip of a classic Vulcan mind meld, forging strategy for the second half. Dubai just needed to stick to the script and keep playing what they call “our polo.” The looks exchanged between Nero and Cambiaso said more than their lips. These two have played together so long that whether their boots are on the ground or in the irons, they can read each other’s thoughts. And they don’t even need Spock’s special touch to make it happen.
Cambiaso, of course, is the shot-caller on any given team. But when he shares the roster with Nero, he listens as much as he talks. While Nero’s public image is that of an introvert, inside the tent he is anything but. He is keenly observant, pragmatic and gives good advice. “If something’s not working, he’s not hesitant to speak his mind. He’ll change things in a heartbeat,” said one of his compatriots.
Players describe Nero as humble, thoughtful and, as Jornayvaz says, “just a wonderfully nice guy.” It may be difficult to imagine “The Wall” as warm and fuzzy, given the immutable stone face he tends to wear, even off the field. But like Cambiaso, he is often misjudged by those who “know” him (or think they do) only from the sidelines—yet another thing they have in common.
“Juanma [Nero] is cut from the same cloth as Adolfo in that he is very strategic in his thinking. Adolfo is constantly thinking about everything— horses, players, how to organise the team, what’s the best strategy against a team,” said Valiente/Dubai patron Bob Jornayvaz, who flew in Friday from the States to watch the final. He knows the Nero family well, having socialized with Juanma at Valiente asados in Wellington and having flipped burgers with his brother, Agustín Nero, at barbeques at the team’s home base in Denver, Colorado.
After donning the Valiente/Dubai jersey a few times this year in the Queen’s Cup, Jornayvaz flew back to Colorado until the final to practice with Agustín, who has worked with Valiente the past several summers. Practice rides, of course, are a lot different than competing at speed. So Jornayvaz and Juan Martín Nero will play together this week in an 18-goal tournament to prep Jornayvaz for his first-ever British Open. To top it off, he’ll be riding shotgun for the Vulcans.