THE strength of the buzz around the RDS during Dublin Horse Show 2012 after the Irish team triumphed to win the Aga Trophy still remains fresh in the memory and from that brilliant team performance, one name stood out. The sensational double clear performance of Clem McMahon’s Pacino was on everyone’s lips that weekend around the showgrounds.

Long after the stacks of the triumphant edition of The Irish Field flew off our stand on that Saturday, people were still clamouring for it and we had to hold tightly onto the very last copy which was for Clem’s thrilled mother Maureen. The excitement about the Aga Khan hero that was Pacino was enormous and still brings a tear to the eye.

That stunning RDS performance remains one of the glittering highlights of Pacino’s life, so cruelly cut short by a metabolic disease less than a year later.

‘The journey and the dream is over’ was how a devastated Clem paid tribute to his nine-year-old super star horse of a lifetime. Leo Powell’s ’Looking Back’ column, published last Saturday, unfolded the extraordinary story of triumph and loss on what was Pacino’s 10th anniversary.

In the last decade, science has galloped on with ever increasing cutting edge DNA and genetic innovations. ‘Nature versus Nurture’ is the long-standing debate of how factors such as genetics and environment combine to influence an individual’s characteristics and traits and regularly forms the backdrop to discussions on cloning.

Mary McCann and family cloned the great Cruising well before his death with Cruising Encore and Cruising Arish available to breeders at Hartwell Stud. Clem and his family at Hilton View Stud have followed suit and officially unveiled Pacino II this week.

We wish them all the luck in the world with Pacino II.

The dream continues.