Prince Harry attends his first rodeo at Texas championship

The Prince made a surprise appearance watching bull riding events

(Getty)

Prince Harry has made a surprise appearance at a Texas rodeo, where he watched bull riding events and reportedly joked that he would have taken part if he hadn’t “lost his rigging bag”.

The Duke of Sussex was seen at the Stockyards Championship Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas on Saturday sporting a dark grey cowboy hat and a light grey shirt.

Cindy Reid, secretary of the Stockyards Championship Rodeo, posted a photograph of the Duke as he spoke to people at the rodeo on her Instagram page.

She captioned the picture: “Where was Prince Harry Saturday night? Oooooh, just hanging out behind the bucking chutes at the Stockyards Championship Rodeo! Loooove it! Thank you for the visit!”

The Melton Bull Company, which raises and trains bulls, also shared the image and wrote: “Prince Harry hanging out at the rodeo this week. We get a lot of rodeo royalty but this is the first Prince I’ve seen.

“Said he was going to enter the bull riding but the airline lost his rigging bag…” the caption continued.

Harry’s first rodeo comes a month after he attended his first Super Bowl in California with his cousin, Princess Eugenie.

The pair watched the competition between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals at Super Bowl LVI on 13 February. Eugenie is close friends with Harry and his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, who she knew before Meghan married into the royal family.

Later in February, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were spotted having dinner with Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank in Santa Barbara, where Harry and Meghan have lived since moving to the US in March 2020.

The dinner marked the Sussexes’ first public meeting with other members of the royal family in almost two years.

Harry is currently fighting a Home Office decision not to allow him to pay for police protection for himself and his family while visiting the UK. The couple lost their police protection, which was funded by taxpayers, after stepping down as senior working royals in 2020.

The Duke wishes to bring his children, Archie and Lilibet, to visit the UK but the family are “unable to return to his home” because it is “too dangerous”, his legal representative has said.