Prince 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.”