The Polo Match with Nacho and Harry
I just got home from Governor's Island and put Bee to sleep! Cory on his bike somewhere in Brooklyn right now on his way home! We had an exciting day at our first polo match! Cory has the camera in his bag with the pictures we took so I thought I would first put two news articles about the event for your enjoyment!
Prince Harry plays charity polo match on last day of official U.S. visit
article taken from cbc.caPrince Harry, who is third in line to the British throne, played a polo match and helped raise money for a charity that supports AIDS orphans on Saturday, the final day of his first official trip to the United States.
The youngest son of Prince Charles and the late Princess of Wales played Saturday afternoon in the Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic on Governors Island in New York Harbour, where spectators included celebrities Madonna and Kate Hudson and fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Harry's team won the match 6-5 and the proceeds from the event will benefit the Sentebale charity that the prince set up with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho for impoverished children in that African nation.
Earlier Saturday, Harry and Seeiso toured Harlem's Children Zone, a community organization that offers families social and educational services in New York City.
Dubbed "the party prince," Harry is a much-watched member of the Royal Family, regularly making newspaper headlines with his party escapades and brushes with scandal. Several years ago, he apologized for wearing a Nazi swastika arm band to a friend's costume party.
But a different Harry emerged during his two-day U.S. visit, which began Friday in New York City where he visited Ground Zero, a garden memorializing Sept. 11 victims and a veterans centre in Manhattan. The trip is being paid for by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.
The prince is scheduled to leave for England on Saturday evening.
"It's been wonderful, it's been a whirlwind," he said Saturday. "I haven't had a chance to let the jet lag set in, and it's time to go already."
Another article with my comments!
NEW YORK (AFP) — Britain's Prince Harry ended his first trip (hard to believe it was his first) to New York on Saturday with victory at a charity polo match and a dousing in champagne.
The prince, 24, projected a newly serious image on his two-day visit to the Big Apple, kicking off his first official foreign trip by paying homage at Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 attacks.
But he was back to his glamour-loving ways Saturday at the star-studded game on Governor's Island in the Hudson River, with Manhattan's skyscrapers the dramatic backdrop.
Riding a chestnut-colored pony called Serena (after the game Bee got to pet this horse!) he helped his team win 6-5 before an adoring crowd.
Well-heeled guests and celebrities in sunglasses, suits, tiny dresses and large hats sipped Veuve Clicquot champagne, which sponsored the event, as they watched from white pavilions. (Bee met a lot of wealthy people today!)
On the other side of the pitch(I learned that this is what the call the grass playing field), hundreds of members of an enthusiastic public lay on the grass, roasting in the sun. (we did not roast as we set up our blanket in the shade)
All afternoon, the "mwah mwah" of air kisses mingled with the shutter snaps of paparazzi cameras and thud of galloping polo ponies.
Argentine model and professional polo player Nacho Figueras (the crowd loved him! I guess I have been in the dark because I had never heard of him. Link to a video about him), who captained the losing team, told AFP that Prince Harry was a "good player."
He dismissed suggestions before the game -- staged to raise money for Prince Harry's Lesotho children's charity Sentebale -- that he might go easy on his royal rival.
"When we're on the polo field we are all equal. That's the way he'd like it," said Figueras, whose appearance caused exclamations of admiration from several female journalists, including one gushing: "You're so tall!"
After the match, the famously hard-partying Prince Harry was soaked in champagne.
Figueras sprayed the third in line to the British throne, who then drank from a champagne-filled trophy -- and sprayed a mouthful of bubbly back.
The red-headed prince is notorious for his late nights out and occasional PR gaffes, but is seen as one of the world's most eligible bachelors.
While New York is brimming with celebrities, the son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana has clearly made a mark.
Invitees to the polo match included Madonna, Chloe Sevigny and fashion designer Marc Jacobs (Cory saw him).
Rapper LL Cool J said he was thrilled (Cory saw him too).
"It's very cool he came over from London for it," he said.
The rapper, sporting diamond ear rings and shadowed by an enormous bodyguard in a black suit, said there was "a certain mystery" about royals.
The closest he'd got to royalty, LL Cool J joked, was Queens -- a decidedly down-to-earth area of New York City.
This was Prince Harry's first time to New York and first trip abroad as official representative of Buckingham Palace.
He began on Friday with wreath-laying at Ground Zero, site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack against the World Trade Center.
He then named the British Garden in Manhattan in honor of the 67 Britons killed on 9/11 and met with veterans at a military hospital.
Prince Harry spitting champagne on Nacho after the game
Last year we tried to go the polo match but when we got to the ferry they told us it was cancelled due to rain. Turns out they ended up playing but we didn't get to see it!