Nacho Figueras: the stud

Polo's poster boy Nacho Figueras is lounging like a panther across a sofa in the Lanesborough. As I walk in, he leaps to his feet, then lifts my hand to his chiselled lips, a glossy swathe of dark hair falling across his brow. And they call football the beautiful game, I reflect, as I sink blushing on to the sofa next to him.

Nacho, 33, is not only one of the best polo players in the world, he's also the face and physique of Ralph Lauren's Polo fragrance. He looks like he's stepped straight out of the pages of a Jilly Cooper novel: his skin is conker-brown, shaded with just enough designer stubble; his upper body tapers in a V to his narrow waist, his muscled legs cause his designer trousers to strain at the seams. And then there's the lazy, creamy Argentinian accent that turns 'polo' to 'pwollo' in a knee-buckling manner.

Last year, readers of Vanity Fair voted Nacho the second most handsome man in the world behind Robert Pattinson but ahead of Brad Pitt. So it's not hard to understand why the white-jeaned polo groupies (aka the Stick Chicks) have his brooding image on their bedroom walls, or why his glamorous wife travels with him wherever he goes.

All this focus on his looks is, he assures me, a matter of indifference to him. 'Pure athleticism is what I am interested in. I am passionate about the sport and my country, and I know this is part of it,' he drawls. Given that his mission is to popularise polo, he's sensible enough to realise that his pout and cheekbones are a multi-goal advantage in the publicity game. (Know what the world's best player, the ten-goal Adolfo Cambiaso, looks like? Me neither.)

Nacho's looks secured him his slot on Oprah last year, not to mention a recent Gossip Girl cameo. And when he played against Prince Harry in a charity match at the Manhattan Polo Classic on Governors Island last year (a rematch is planned for the end of this month) his chums Madonna, Kate Hudson and Chloë Sevigny were cheering him on in the crowd. When Harry's team beat his, Harry spat a mouthful of champagne into his face, but it didn't dampen their friendship. 'The princes are nice, simple, sensible guys. I think they're great. Harry especially, he's so laid-back and he's not into himself at all. The only reason he went to New York and put himself through all that was to raise money for those kids. He means what he does with all his heart - he's not there because someone says he has to be.'

As the nation tightens its collective belt, this cannot be a propitious moment to persuade us all to abandon the football terraces for Cowdray Park and champagne. 'There are misconceptions about the sport being elitist,' insists Nacho. 'For me, it was the opposite. It brings together so many different people. Polo is what lets a random guy from Argentina like me play with William and Harry.'

There are signs that Nacho's ambitious plans to democratise the Sport of Princes may be bearing fruit. Earlier this month, 27,000 spectators made their way to Hurlingham Park for the second Polo in the Park tournament since the pitch was demolished in the 1930s to enable us to Dig for Victory. In the manner of 20/20 cricket, the rules have been changed to make the game faster, more exciting and less complicated. There are three instead of four players per team, a brightly coloured ball and extra points for shooting goals from further away, while polo's silliest rule, which makes the teams change ends after every goal, has been abandoned.

In response to polo's new inner-city popularity, Hammersmith & Fulham Council has just launched an initiative offering free lessons for the borough's comprehensive schools. According to Victoria Grace, whose training academy Ascot Park, hosts the lessons, 'It's cheaper to come and have a polo lesson than it is to play five-a-side football.' The game is played by Sarah Harding, Jack Dee, Katie Price and Sylvester Stallone. And on February 24 next year, the Gaucho restaurant chain is staging a giant polo tournament in The 02, which will be the world's first indoor test match. Nacho will be captaining the Argentinian team.

Strange as it now seems, polo was not Nacho's first love. Naturally sporty, he was a champion hurdler who played tennis, football and skied. When he was nine, his parents moved from the south of Argentina to Buenos Aires, and his father, an agronomist, bought a farm on the outskirts of the city next to a friend's estate. 'This guy had a son who was my age and he was amazing at polo. It was tough at the beginning, to see my friend riding much better than me,' he recalls. To begin with, he had a single pony. 'In Argentina, you can always get a pony from somewhere. We didn't have a lot of money.'

Nacho's commitment to polo came after he was chosen to represent his country at hurdles. 'I trained as never before, three hours a day,' he says. 'I was as fit as I could be. And I was beaten by these two Brazilian guys. I thought, "This is going to be the rest of my life, I'm always going to be third because they're just better than me." I don't like third place,' he goes on, 'so I thought, "No! I am going to do something else." I started looking at my best friend, and I realised that he was great at polo but I wasn't as far away from him as I used to be.' By the age of 17, he was a professional, and he started playing for White Birch, a team co-owned by American businessman Neil Hirsch. (Polo players are paid by their team's owner or 'patron'; a top player commands six figures.) Now he captains and co-owns Black Watch with Hirsch, and is ranked in the world's top 100, with a six-goal handicap (in a range that goes from 10 at best to -2 at worst).

'I am driven to be better,' he says. 'A lot of the work is done by the horse, so polo is pretty generous - you can play at a high level till you're 45, and getting better horses makes you better.' How many has he got? 'Too many,' he says, 'I'm like Carrie Bradshaw and shoes.' He has 15 ponies in the US, three here, and 250 of varying ages at his farm in Argentina. Considering that a famous polo mare recently made $490,000 at auction, this represents a sizeable portfolio.

'For very special horses, you pay crazy prices,' says Nacho. 'That is why I breed mine.' What Nacho looks for in his ponies is 'an action like a squirrel'. When he was approached by the photographer Bruce Weber 11 years ago, at a dinner party held by Kelly Klein, ex-wife of Calvin, in the Hamptons, he hoped modelling might help him buy more squirrelly mounts. 'Then I realised that I could make extra money, and raise awareness of the sport.'

Nacho started modelling for Ralph Lauren in 2000 and has been under contract since 2005. Last year, he was made the face of the World of Polo fragrances, including Polo Black, Polo Blue and Polo Modern Reserve, and Ralph Lauren now provides all the clothes for Black Watch.

Black Watch is also a label under the Ralph Lauren umbrella, offering tight polo shirts emblazoned with Nacho's number 2 (a snip at $125 and unforgiving to wear unless you've got his rippling abdominals.) 'The idea is for me to make it a billion-dollar brand,' says Nacho.

It's hard to see where he's going to find the time to help build his brand on top of his other commitments. Polo demands an extraordinary investment from its stars, who travel the world with entourages of ponies, grooms, blacksmiths, vets and Stick Chicks galore. 'It looks very glamorous, but I am just the cherry on the cake,' says Nacho.

He might play in England in May, New York in June, St Tropez, Santa Barbara and the Hamptons over the summer, Argentina during the winter, The 02 in February and spring in Palm Beach. 'We're gypsies,' he says. 'I came over here on the plane yesterday with 25 other guys, all of us talking and drinking maté [herbal tea] with seven or eight babies and kids running around. My wife was there, and her sister, who's married to a Chilean player - we're all very close.' He always travels with his wife, the photographer Delfina Blaquier, and their three children Hilario, ten, Aurora, five and baby Artemio.