Few sports are as closely woven into royal tradition as polo. Prince Philip’s connection ran so deep that he established a club in Windsor Great Park.
King Charles also played the sport consistently for four decades, continuing despite a series of painful injuries.
Prince William, by contrast, now takes part in just one polo match each year. A senior figure within the sport says that limited involvement has caused disappointment among some in the polo world.
According to the source, palace advisers are reluctant for the future king to play, viewing polo as an elitist pursuit that does not fit with modern “woke” expectations.
The preference, the figure claims, is for William and the Princess of Wales to focus their public work on causes including environmental protection, homelessness and early-years education.
“It’s not ‘woke’,” the polo figure says dismissively.
“The people around William tell him he shouldn’t play, but he says, ‘Find me another way to raise £1million for charity in an hour and I’ll do it.’”
“This year’s match raised £1.1million. He only plays once a year now. It’s pathetic.”
Prince William now takes part in a single polo match each year, prompting disappointment from a senior figure in the sport over what is seen as limited royal involvement
William and Prince Harry were introduced to polo during childhood. Their early lessons came from Claire Tomlinson, who co-owned Beaufort Polo Club near Highgrove, King Charles’s Gloucestershire residence, with her husband Simon.
The Tomlinsons’ sons, Luke and Mark, formed close friendships with the young princes. During his gap year after Eton College, Harry also stayed at the family’s ranch in Argentina.
Eton has its own polo team, raising the possibility that Prince George, who started at the school last month, could eventually follow his father and uncle into the sport.
Kensington Palace has declined to comment. Royal sources, however, are keen to point to William’s annual charity polo appearance as evidence that he remains committed to the game.
Ellie sings praises of her children’s dads
The 39-year-old singer has a five-year-old son, Arthur, with 34-year-old Old Etonian Caspar Jopling
Ellie Goulding’s five-year marriage to art dealer Caspar Jopling came to an end in 2024, but he remains an important presence in her life.
The 39-year-old singer shares five-year-old Arthur with Caspar, 34, and has a seven-month-old daughter, Iris, with her partner, actor Beau Minniear, 29. She says balancing motherhood with her music career has been made easier by the support of both men. “I haven’t really had to juggle because I have an incredible partner and two phenomenal dads who are always so supportive,” she tells me at the opening of the Boodles Townhouse on Old Bond Street in Mayfair.
For the event, the jeweller loaned her a necklace valued at £500,000.
“It’s so elegant and iconic,” she says enthusiastically.
Will Fergie’s Budgie take off again?
She has kept a notably low profile in recent months — appearing even less frequently in public than her former husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Yet during the same week Andrew won a High Court ruling that search warrants for Marsh Farm on the Sandringham estate and Royal Lodge, his former Windsor home, had been obtained unlawfully, signs emerged that the ever-resilient Sarah Ferguson may also be returning to the spotlight.
I can disclose that she’s just transferred the trademark rights for her Budgie The Little Helicopter and Little Red children’s books
from one of her former companies – which is now defunct – into her own name. The move, recorded at the
Intellectual Property Office, suggests Fergie, 66, envisages the books continuing to generate income.
By contrast, she let the trademark for her charitable entity, Philantrepreneur, expire in June. Charity does begin at home, of course.
Historian Andrew Roberts is alarmed at plummeting sartorial standards in the Lords since the hereditary peers were expelled.
‘The thin veil of civilisation has been ripped aside and now anything goes,’ Lord Roberts thunders.
Ties are now ‘optional’, he says, with ‘trainers, brothel-creepers, black shirts, bootees, light corduroy jackets and even ski jumpers’ regularly worn.
He even claims a former PM has taken to wearing ‘elasticated black moccasins’ and a ghastly smattering of ‘light grey socks’ appearing on the Tory Privy Counsellors’ bench. The horror!
Sienna: I couldn’t be on Traitors because of baby
Sienna Miller was ‘desperate’ to compete in Celebrity Traitors but couldn’t because she was pregnant
Sienna Miller was ‘desperate’ to compete in Celebrity Traitors, but was already involved in a more important production.
‘I couldn’t do it because I was about to have a baby the month they were filming,’ says the actress, 44, who has just had her second child with her boyfriend Oli Green, 29.
Sienna adds that the producer of War, the drama in which she stars alongside Dominic West, tried to secure a place for her by texting BBC bosses. ‘I was desperate to do it,’ she sighs.
It never rains but it pours for the Fiennes clan. Conservationist Jake Fiennes has been given a 17-month driving ban after being caught more than twice over the legal alcohol limit.
Jake, 56, was stopped by police while driving his BMW in Norfolk last month. Jake is head of conservation at Holkham Hall, the Earl of Leicester’s ancestral seat where Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was recently a dinner guest.
Tom Cruise’s backstage banter
Tom Cruise’s recent encounter with John Bishop left a lasting impression on the comedian.
The Hollywood star, 64, recently joined the Liverpudlian, 59, on The Graham Norton Show and surprised him with his backstage etiquette. ‘Tom does this thing, which is a real mark of a star,’ John explains. ‘He goes around the dressing rooms of all the other guests before the show and says, ‘Hello’. Obviously, everyone’s excited to be on with Tom Cruise. It just wouldn’t work the other way around.’
He adds: ‘If I went knocking on the doors, ‘I’m on with you’, it just feels a little bit weird.’
Is all well in John Cleese’s fourth marriage, to jeweller Jennifer Wade?
I ask only because the Fawlty Towers star has been talking about the insults he receives online.
He says: ‘The description I like best is one bestowed on me recently by my wife – “nasty little man”.’
