In entrance of rolling cameras and a crowd of practically 300 friends, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, barreled towards one finish of a polo discipline in South Florida on Friday.
“The Duke of Sussex may score a goal!” an announcer cried by way of a loudspeaker on the Royal Salute Polo Challenge to Benefit Sentebale, which was attended by spectators together with Serena Williams and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and by movie crews with Netflix. The streamer is producing a polo-related venture with Harry and Meghan that was introduced on Thursday and that might be filmed in Wellington, an prosperous space close to Palm Beach identified for its equestrian scene.
The announcer and plenty of within the crowd groaned audibly when Harry missed the shot. He was sporting a blue and white jersey with the No. 2 on it, together with a emblem for Sentebale, a charitable group he based to assist kids within the African international locations Lesotho and Botswana, and a emblem for Royal Salute, a whisky model and a sponsor of the invitation-only charity match involving three groups.
The occasion occurred on the Grand Champions Polo Club and its organizers included Melissa and Marc Ganzi, members of Wellington’s polo group in addition to the founders of the World Polo League and the house owners of the Grand Champions membership. The Ganzis additionally personal the Santa Rita Polo Farm in Wellington and the Aspen Valley Polo Club in Colorado. Mr. Ganzi is the chief government of Digital Bridge, an funding agency previously generally known as Colony Capital, the place he succeeded Thomas J. Barrack Jr., the chairman of former President Donald J. Trump’s inaugural committee.
Harry, 39, one of many highest-profile polo gamers on the planet, competed within the match with different stars of the game just like the famend Argentine participant Adolfo Cambiaso; the English participant Malcolm Borwick, an envoy for Royal Salute; and Nacho Figueras, the Argentine athlete who has usually confronted off in opposition to Harry on polo fields and whose profession has made him a face not solely of the game but additionally of Ralph Lauren, a model that has intertwined its id with polo.
Harry’s crew finally received the match, and was introduced with a trophy by Meghan, who acquired cheers from the gang as she approached a podium on a stage to ship the award in a cream-colored Heidi Merrick halter gown and towering nude Aquazzura pumps.
Meghan, after being assisted up a staircase to the stage, walked previous the opposite gamers on the profitable crew and straight towards her husband. “Me?” Harry mentioned jokingly to his spouse, pointing towards his chest and feigning shock earlier than the couple leaned in for a reasonably cinematic kiss — the Netflix cameras had been there, in spite of everything.
The Sussexes’ polo venture is one in every of two newly introduced initiatives involving them and the streamer; the opposite venture, in line with Deadline, will concentrate on Meghan and actions like cooking, gardening and entertaining. Last month Meghan, 42, introduced on social media the beginning of one other new enterprise, a life-style model known as American Riviera Orchard, a couple of week earlier than Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed she had been identified with most cancers.
The Royal Salute Polo Challenge got here on the finish of the skilled polo season within the United States, which takes place largely in Wellington from January by way of April. The U.S. Open Polo Championship finals are scheduled to happen subsequent weekend on the National Polo Center in Wellington. The skilled tour then strikes to Europe for the summer season and to South America within the fall.
As Mr. Borwick, the English participant, put it: “Polo season follows the sun.” In an interview earlier than the match on Friday, he mentioned that “the sport has changed so much” as investments in polo have remodeled it into “a fully professional sport.”
“It used to be perfectly acceptable to leave the bar at 3 o’clock in the morning and go play professional polo the next day,” Mr. Borwick mentioned, describing the game’s evolution as “an incredible journey.”
“For us, as professionals going on that journey, it has been a challenge to continually adapt and change,” Mr. Borwick mentioned.
Source: www.nytimes.com