Is this polo hunk now more of a brother to Harry than William?
THE ‘ bromance’ between Prince Harry and Nacho Figueras — the handsome and influential ‘ David Beckham of polo’ — grows, it would seem, ever deeper. In one week alone, there have been three very public displays of affection.
In one, Harry’s wife, Meghan, sent a jar of strawberry jam — the first product from her much-anticipated lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard — to Nacho’s socialite wife, Delfina Blaquier.
Delfina, a model and photographer, posted a picture of her jar, marked 10/50, on Instagram with the words: ‘Strawberry jam makes me happy. And I love your jam ,@ American Riviera Orchard .’
Then there were the appearances of the two couples at two celebrity polo matches in Florida — one of them a benefit for the Prince’s charity Sentebale.
Meghan kissed Nacho, held hands with his daughter, Alba, and clasped Delfina — her ‘polo wife’ and ‘sister’ — in a fullon embrace alongside the polo field.
Harry, who is less demonstrative, walked pink-cheeked in step with Nacho, a handsome globe-trotting mentor who just might be Harry’s one true friend.
Nacho, barefoot in jeans, exuded casual cool. Harry, less so.
It was the charity Sentebale, founded by Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, which first brought Harry into Nacho’s orbit in 2009, when Nacho — then the sport’s most famous figure — agreed to take part in a fundraising match for the charity.
Harry, just 24 and in the process of training to be a helicopter pilot, was in New York on his first official trip abroad.
He made some rather juvenile overtures of friendship towards Nacho, spitting champagne in his face during the cup presentation ceremony. Nacho didn’t look all that delighted by the prank, but they stayed in touch and kept playing polo together. ‘Well, I don’t call him every morning to ask what he had for breakfast, but yes, we have a relationship,’ Nacho said two years later.
By 2017, they were on close enough terms for Harry to confide in Nacho that he had met someone special — Meghan Markle.
‘I think this might be the one,’ Harry told him. Nacho said: ‘You could tell right away that those were the eyes of someone who had fallen in love.’
He later told People magazine that he knew ‘first hand’ that Harry was longing to be a father, and said the prince had found ‘an amazing partner’ in Meghan.
Nacho and Delfina attended the royal wedding at Windsor in 2018, and made the cut for the evening reception (unlike the Beckhams).
The following year, Nacho referred to the couple as ‘heroes’ on Ellen DeGeneres’s chat show. After Harry and Meghan moved to California, Harry started to play for Nacho’s Los Padres polo team in Santa Barbara. Nacho remarked that it meant the two men ‘really bonded more than we’ve ever bonded before’.
He said: ‘Being able to play with him for two months in a real competition with the Los Padres team was a dream come true for me, and maybe for him, too...
‘We got to spend a lot of time together on the field; off the field
with our families. It’s an honour to be his teammate.’
By now, of course, Harry’s relationship with his older brother, Prince William, was in ashes.
In August 2023, Harry and Nacho travelled together (by private jet) to play a charity polo match in Singapore, goofing around, trying on sunglasses and having fun.
Montecito journalist Richard Mineards says: ‘I think Harry considers Nacho more like a brother than a good friend, particularly given the schism with William.’
Mineards adds that Nacho’s relentless positivity about Harry is an asset: ‘Nacho often speaks publicly about . . . how wonderful Harry and his intentions are.’
You could, in fact, make the case that Harry and Meghan’s life in California owes much to Nacho’s patronage.
He was the one, for instance, who introduced Harry and Meghan to Ellen DeGeneres, who remains their principal celebrity contact and has not swerved in her support for the couple.
Ellen, in turn, introduced the Sussexes to her money man, Adam Lilling, who set Meghan up with her first investment, in Clevr Blends drinks and — more crucially — had Harry introduced to the mental health coaching start-up BetterUp, which gave him a well-paid job. But in the world of polo, it is Nacho who is considered royalty.
The Argentine will figure heavily in the Netflix documentary about the sport which Prince Harry is making, and the two men were seen in Palm Beach, Florida, this week during a break in filming.
Harry’s disdainful relationship with the media is an old story, well told, but Nacho, 47, loves to talk to reporters and has spent many years being (admiringly) profiled and having his friendships with famous people, such as Madonna and the artist Jeff Koons, used to put his sport on the map.
This week he let slip that the Netflix documentary is being put together not so much to examine the elite sport, but more to give Sentebale a global boost.
HE SAID he hoped Harry and his children, Archie and Lili, would soon join him, and the cameras, to film in Botswana, where the charity is active. He also talked about how meaningful Harry finds it to be in Africa — and how everyone there is desperate to meet the prince’s children.
So who are this couple who mean so much to Harry and Meghan? It should be acknowledged that as much divides Harry and Nacho as unites them.
Where Harry has, sadly, succumbed to the Windsor male pattern baldness aged only 39, 47-year-old Nacho is ageing like a very fine wine. The looks which made him a male model at 20 — his perfect teeth and hair and body of a Greek god bowled over the legendary photographer Bruce Weber — remain very much in demand. Actor Andrew Rannells said after watching him at the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic: ‘He’s like a magical god, particularly when you see him on a horse. You’re like “How is that a man, and I’m a man? How are we the same species?” ’ There is seemingly nothing Nacho can’t do: he paints, he cooks, and is a successful businessman. ‘Winning is a custom,’ he shrugs.
His career has followed an endlessly upward trajectory and he appears to have limitless funds, with a huge estate in Argentina, a fabulous home in Florida (both notable enough to have had the distinction of featuring in Architectural Digest) and an art collection which runs to Warhol, Basquiat and Jackson Pollock. Born Ignacio Figueras Bermejo, Nacho is the son of agronomist Horacio and his wife, Mercedes. He has some prominent forbears: his great-great-great-grandfather was a close adviser to President Julio Argentino Roca. Nacho grew up with two younger sisters in a tight-knit middle-class family on a small farm outside Buenos Aires. He told one interviewer that his doting father spent ‘more than he could afford’ to support his son’s interest in polo. In a stroke of good luck, one of his father’s best friends played the sport and had a son who was also polo mad. And so young Nacho was sent off to spend weekends on the family estate with Lucas Monteverde Jr, who became a ‘ten-goal player’ — the highest ranking in polo, held by only around 20 players in the world. (Nacho became an eight-goaler, although he has slipped to a six, putting him in the top 100.)
In 1994, aged 17, Nacho turned professional and left home to join a French polo team. That was the start of a long and successful career on the polo circuit, which moves from Connecticut, to Florida, on to the Napa Valley and then Windsor, Ascot and so on.
It’s the sexiest of sports, Nacho has admitted. ‘I think there’s something about a man on a horse, right?’ he said. ‘The boots, the pants, the shirt, the helmet. You have guys running around on horses in prime locations and athletes — they are not short-butts; they are aesthetic people.
‘And it’s a rough sport – it has speed, it has adrenaline and it can be dangerous. So when you put it all together ... there’s a reason why Ralph Lauren picked the sport to represent his brand. He picked one of the most aspirational and sexy sports out there.’
Another lucky break came in 1999, during a dinner hosted by Kelly Klein, then wife of designer Calvin. She seated him with photographer Bruce Weber, who shot all the Ralph Lauren campaigns.
Nacho posed for his first Ralph Lauren Polo campaign in 2000, and represented the brand for 20 years.
In an interview he said: ‘In the beginning, I was getting all this feedback from players saying: “What are you doing? What is this?” But I thought to myself: “This is a great opportunity. This is a perfect bridge to help me achieve my dream and my vision of polo becoming a bigger, more visible sport.”
‘So I used the money I got from modelling to buy better horses and to become a better player.’
By this time he was married to Delfina, who comes from the highest circles of Argentine society.
She and Nacho had son Hilario when she was only 19 and he was 23. Hilario, now 23, plays polo professionally like his father. Elder daughter, Aurora, is studying industrial design in Buenos Aires, Artemio, who is 14, also loves polo, and younger daughter, Alba, seen embracing Meghan, loves both polo and show-jumping.
NATURALLY, it’s a peripatetic life, with the family’s time divided between a 30-acre estate outside the city of General Rodriguez in Argentina, as well as Palm Beach and the Hamptons in the U.S.
The only cloud on the horizon is Nacho’s age. At 47, he is on borrowed time as a sportsman.
He broke his hip in England in 2013 when he fell and his horse landed on top of him.
He had to lie still for two weeks in Chichester hospital and avoided surgery — but said that by the time he was in his mid- 40s his career would start going downhill. To which end he’s been diversifying.
Nacho founded the Polo Classic, held annually in New York and Los Angeles. He also lent his name to a perfume, and a series of ghostwritten bonkbusting romance novels.
He has many friends, among them Coldplay’s Chris Martin, the fashion designer Valentino, Hollywood actress Kate Hudson, hospitality tycoon Andre Balazs and art titan Julian Schnabel.
Plus, of course, Prince Harry and Meghan, who are possibly his greatest fans of all.