Eugenie’s new baby pays tribute to polo-mad ladies man, ‘Galloping’ Major Ron

The world’s newest royal is Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank, daughter of Princess Eugenie and grandchild of the Duke and Duchess of York.

George is considered a tribute to Eugenie’s father-in-law, father of husband Jack Brooksbank.

But it’s the third of those names, Ronnie, that has garnered the most attention, as it seems to be in memory of the late ‘Galloping’ Major Ron, the colourful, polo-playing father of the baby’s grandmother, Sarah Ferguson.

While Ernest is just getting started, Major Ron experienced the ups and downs of a life lived to the fullest – a dashing figure known for a number of high society affairs.

A talented polo player and former polo manager to the Prince of Wales, his 1994 autobiography was aptly titled The Galloping Major.

Born into the gentry of the country, he spent his quiet early years among horses and dogs while living on a 480-acre farm in Dummer, Hampshire, from the age of eight.

He was educated at Eton and moved to Bishop’s Waltham before pursuing a 19-year military career through Sandhurst and a commission in the Household Cavalry.

While at Sandhurst, he marched with a thunderous hangover in the coronation procession of 1953.

As a young officer, he later led the Sovereign’s Escort on the Queen’s Trooping the Color birthday parade.

Perhaps carried away by enthusiasm, Ronald reportedly became close to Her Majesty.

It was reported that the late Queen Elizabeth had said to him when his horse masked her out of plain sight, “Back a bit, Ron—they’ve come to see me, not you.”

A lieutenant in the Life Guards, he married his first wife Susan Wright, an 18-year-old debutante, in November 1956 in St Margaret’s, Westminster. They had two daughters, Jane and Sarah – grandmother of the newborn Ernest.

(The news of the birth was kept secret for a week until it was finally announced that the child was born on May 30 and weighed 7 pounds 1 oz. A lovely photo shows older brother August watching over Ernest with the caption: ‘Augie loves being a big brother already’)

A tryst with a colonel’s 23-year-old daughter led to the breakup of Major Ron’s first marriage in 1972. His wife, Susan, sought comfort in the arms of Argentine polo star Hector Barrantes.

Sarah and Jane were still teenagers when Ronald and Susan divorced in 1974.

While raising his daughters as a single parent, the Major courted a range of society women, including Princess Diana’s mother, Frances Shand-Kydd, to whom he proposed marriage.

Mrs. Shand-Kydd declined the offer and in 1976 he married his second wife, Susan Deptford. They had three children, Andrew, Alice and Eliza.

After Ferguson’s retirement in 1968, he devoted himself to polo, an interest that brought him into contact with the royal family.

Major Ferguson acted as the Duke of Edinburgh’s unpaid polo manager before holding the same position for Charles, the then Prince of Wales, for 21 years.

His role was to prepare the Prince’s competition schedule, fit it around his many official duties, and to look after the Prince’s horses and equipment.

It was through this connection that his daughter, Sarah Ferguson, the now Duchess of York, met Prince Andrew.

Prior to their wedding in 1986, Sarah’s parents told her Washington Post whom the couple had first met when they were just three years old – at a polo match in which their fathers (Major Ronald and Prince Philip) both competed.

When in 1988 the Galloping Majoar was photographed entering and exiting a London massage parlor, he was leaving his role as manager of the elite Guards Polo Club.

The major was fiercely protective of his daughter Sarah, nicknamed Fergie, whose marriage to Prince Andrew ended in divorce in 1996.

The Duchess claimed she made this decision so she could pursue a career independently of the royal family.

And Sarah, who showed her father’s fighting spirit to fight back from deep debts and personal desperation after her divorce, adored her beloved father.

He was not afraid to speak his mind, proving the point when he berated royal courtiers, accusing them of undermining his daughter’s marriage.

Aiming for controversy but coveting privacy, he told a journalist, “I’m nobody. No one at all. I happen to be the father of the Duchess of York. I mean, that doesn’t make me very important, does it?’

In 1993, Major Ferguson was also in trouble for his connection to Lesley Player, a woman with whom he had organized an international women’s polo tournament, after she claimed to have had an affair with Ferguson.

When confronted with ill health later in life, he displayed characteristic courage.

Major Ferguson was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996, but was cleared after radiotherapy treatment in 1998.

He championed the Coalition For Prostate Cancer and helped launch the UK’s first prostate cancer awareness week, launching a petition at 10 Downing Street calling for increased spending on research, early detection and treatment.

However, his cancer returned in 2001, but he strongly confronted the news. “I’m not going to die yet,” he said.

“I still play cricket and drive and live a normal life as much as possible.”

He offered words of hope to other cancer patients and their families, saying, “You can never get used to that word, cancer, when it has a direct relationship.

“Cancer is something that hits right away and because you hear about so many cases of people dying from cancer, cancer is immediately associated with death.

‘But it doesn’t have to be, in my case far from it. It doesn’t have to be.’

In November 2002, after suffering a suspected heart attack, he collapsed and was admitted to Basingstoke General Hospital.

He recovered after a second heart attack on March 16, 2003, but at the end of a long battle, his condition worsened and he died at the age of 71.