The impact of the three hijacked airliners flown into New York 's Twin Towers and the Pentagon five years ago were felt far beyond wasted lives and shattered buildings. As global business changed direction in its aftermath, so too did the lives of thousands of people far removed from 9/11.

Thus two Anglo-Argentine brothers, Robin and Kevin Begg , who completed their education in England , had made careers there, Robin as a reinsurance broker with Lloyds of London, Kevin with Kleinwort Benson. Both were later posted by senior management to open offices in Buenos Aires , harnessing their local knowledge and bi-lingual skills. 9/11 changed all that. The found themselves in limbo and decided to return to their roots.

Such was the genesis of Estancia Los Potreros , previously entirely focused on breeding cattle, now also a guest-lodge specialising in trail-riding and more recently "country" polo. Potrero is Spanish for a field expressly for grazing horses

An hour's drive from Cordoba (itself Argentina's second city and an hour's flight northwest from Buenos Aires) the 2,500-hectare estancia is more than 1,000 metres above sea-level, nestled in the Sierra Chicas , the foothills of the Andean Cordillera near the Chilean border.

Annual rainfall is similar to London , but unlike London , comes in fierce summer thunderstorms. Winters are dry and sunny. The country is steep and open, broken by granite outcrops, a landscape of grassland supporting 1,000 Aberdeen Angus cattle, together with 140 horses variously engaged in breeding, cattle work, recreational trail-riding and beginners' polo.

Stands of woodland harbour small deer and wild boar, foxes, hares, skunks and viscacha (the South American cousin of the badger) together with the Argentine wild cat, the puma, emblem of its rugby team, nocturnal by habit and rarely seen. Birdlife ranges from the soaring condor and eagle to the humming-bird.

As part of an estate fourfold its current size, under Spanish imperial rule in the 16 th century it was settled by colonists to breed mules to work in the silver mines of Peru . The Begg family, of Scottish stock, bought it a century ago, since when it has been periodically enlarged by acquisitions of adjacent farmland.

In the early post-war years the Begg brothers' widowed grandmother opened her homestead to itinerant paying guests, but as a full-blown commercial guest-lodge with all the trappings it began on 1 st January 2002 .

At its core is the idea of offering visitors the chance to immerse themselves in a working cattle estancia together with trail-riding, hiking, picnics, bird-watching, swimming in rock-pools and, should they wish, beginners' polo. Should you wish it, beyond the estancia are three quality golf courses, each within an hour's drive, and Cordoba (population 1.3 million) with its shopping and the architectural heritage of Spanish imperial rule, the jewel of its crown the 17 th century legacy of the Jesuit Order.

At the heart of Estancia Los Potreros is a 19 th century farmhouse and adjacent cottages converted for guest accommodation, offering all the creature comforts we take for granted: en suite bathrooms and wood-burning stoves in each of its seven twin-bed guestrooms, a drawing room with a log fire for guests for pre-dinner drinks and coffee after dinner, and a dining-room seating everyone at one table, leading in turn into a kitchen with all the modern amenities.

The ambience is of an English country-weekend house-party, ideally hosting up to 14 visitors, but with accommodation elsewhere for larger parties. Furnishings, fittings and artwork, so far from signalling urban sophistication, celebrate the farmhouse's rustic origins—and rightly so. Estancia staff and their families sometimes provide impromptu evening concerts of folkloric singing and dancing.

Elsewhere in Argentina families owning estancias converted to guest-lodges employ managers to host their clients, and themselves live elsewhere, perhaps in Buenos Aires . Here by contrast, Robin and Kevin Begg , with their English-born wives Teleri and Lou ise, make a point of mingling with their guests, be it mealtimes, riding excursions or at polo. With her culinary skills honed by a cordon bleu training, Teleri Begg also devises recipes and supervises the kitchen staff.

This year the London travel magazine Tatler -Conde Nast named Estancia Los Potreros in its survey of the world's 101 top hotels. To date Britain has accounted for 70 per cent of guests with Australia , New Zealand , South Africa , the US and continental Western Europe providing most of the balance. But following energetic promotion of itself to travel agents elsewhere, the pendulum is swinging to a more evenly balanced clientele.

The Begg brothers also distinguish Los Potreros from other Argentine guest-lodges by their approach trail-riding, be it half-day excursions, full-day with a picnic lunch or by prior arrangement camping out overnight. Much attention is given to comfortable saddles. First-aid kits are carried on every outing, and guests are escorted by an English-speaking member of staff.

Whereas most guest-lodge estancias, located on the pampas, offer horse-trekking along farm-roads as flat as ironing boards, Estancia Los Potreros trails are uphill and down, over streams and onto plateaus with wide-screen views of plains below and shimmering mountain ranges. Rotated between cattle-work and trekking, the horses are placid (but not lethargic), sure-footed and responsive to the slightest neck-reined signals.

Ten minutes' drive from the guesthouse are two polo fields. Polo at Los Potreros is an optional extra, not to be confused with those polo schools, mostly in Buenos Aires Province , taking clients for a week or ten days expressly to be coached in polo.

Estancia Los Potreros typically assigns one, perhaps two, half-days in a week to that same purpose. Light-weight mallets and helmets are supplied together with quiet horses accustomed to beginners. Robin Begg , himself a low-goal player, introduces the game by explaining how to hit a polo ball without doing injury to one's horse, oneself or to other players, while impressing upon his students the importance of the right-of-way rule. Novices then practice strokes at walking pace, followed by slow practice chukkas.

Responding to growing client interest, the Beggs have since allocated two successive weeks in early December to a daily polo school for beginners. A medium-goal English-speaking Argentine professional coach is hired from the nearby polo centre, Ascochinga , with polo-playing neighbours making up the numbers for practice chukkas. This will be followed by a second two-week polo school during and following the Easter break next year, shortly before the English polo season opens.

On the first weekend after last Easter Estancia Los Potreros hosted its annual low-goal round-robin tournament, comprising three blended teams of men and women, boys and girls, ranging in age from 10 to 50 years old--with several of the children putting the grown-ups to shame. A trophy presentation, colour-coded team shirts, a time-keeper ringing a bell to signal chukkas and an umpire ( Polo, Leisure & Lifestyle's Buenos Aires correspondent) clad in the traditional black-and-white striped shirt, gave the tournament an aura of veracity.

Players staying at Estancia Los Potreros together with locally invited players and their families there to cheer them on added it up to 60 people for Sunday lunch. Following the morning finals, they gathered at trestle-tables in the guesthouse garden for suckling pig prepared asado -style, wines made on the estancia and other fare. Thanks to its Italian heritage, Argentina excels at food and wine.

Estancia Los Potreros is open all year with its peak season from September to April. The daily tariff (with a three-day minimum stay) is covering everything including airport transfers. Polo weeks and trail rides are fractionally more expensive than the normal estancia stay.