Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Although the 30-year-old royal traded his polo mallet for a rugby ball just weeks ago for a new British sports initiative, on Thursday, Prince Harry climbed back into his polo horse’s saddle to raise money for his African charity Sentebale, which raises funds for children affected by HIV and AIDS in Lesotho in southern Africa.



He led his team to a 5-4 victory in the charity match that took place in the United Arab Emirates, and he was even named Man of the Match. Making the day even more smashing (and I hope you read that word with a British accent) was the presence of a few celebrities, including former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell (aka Ginger Spice) and Dan Stevens, whom Americans will know best as Matthew Crawley from “Downton Abbey.” Halliwell’s fiance, Formula 1 Red Bull boss Christian Horner, was also there.





Asked if by the Daily Mail whether she’d ever been on a polo pony before, Halliwell said yes and described the horse “like a Ferrari,” but she was interrupted by Horner, who jokingly, the paper assures, said, “No, don’t say Ferrari, it’s Red Bull!”




The winning team, the Sentebale Huntsman Team (L-R): Abdulla Ben Desmal, Malcolm Borwick, Prince Harry and Saeed Bin Drai.

Some will feel the scene is rather seedy. A barefoot young man partying on board a yacht grasps a plastic cocktail glass in one hand and the nozzle of a shisha, or hookah, pipe with the other, holding it to his mouth. The young man is Prince Harry, who, even at 30, has failed to shed his worrying habit of presenting the world with inappropriate images of the Royal Family at play. A picture of him sucking on the shisha on a yacht — hired for a lavish party by a Dubai branch of Mayfair nightclub Mahiki — has this week been winging its way round the world.



The colourful scene took place in Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina last Friday, two days before the Formula 1 season’s final Grand Prix was held in the emirate. Harry attended the race on Sunday, and when British driver Lewis Hamilton was crowned World Champion, he was publicly hailed by the Prince — in notably unregal style — as a ‘legend’.



That evening Harry was to be found ‘twerking’ in a nightclub, which he didn’t leave until nearly dawn. All in all, a somewhat undignified weekend. The problem for the Prince is that everywhere he goes these days, people brandish their smart phones to snap him. At one point, Harry smiled for a photo with his arm round American R&B singer Tyrese Gibson.



So Harry may receive a sharp reprimand from his grandfather, non-smoking Prince Philip, who has been patron of the BHF since its inception 53 years ago. As Professor Peter Weissberg, the foundation’s medical director, says: ‘There is a worrying misconception that smoking shisha is not harmful to your health. But strip away the fruity flavours and you’re left with the same toxic and addictive substances as cigarettes, including tar, nicotine, arsenic and lead.’ The BHF points out that in one puff from a shisha, a user inhales the same amount of smoke as from an entire cigarette. Using it for 15 minutes, as Harry did, is equivalent to smoking 25 cigarettes.