Free reign

To mark the Queen’s 90th birthday, Lord Patrick Beresford looks back on the perennial presence of horses in the course of Her Majesty’s life, from royal races to an attempted assassination

Opposite The Queen at the Al Habtoor Royal Windsor Cup in 2014 Below Her Majesty in 1960, galloping along the racecourse at Ascot

IMAGESOFPOLO.COM; PAUL POPPER/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES Windsor Great Park, June 1955: pony lines in the recently formed polo club. Top society photographer Albert Swaebe, camera at the ready, approaches a couple talking together. ‘I know you,’ he remarks to the player, ‘but what is the name of your young lady?’ The 21-year-old player is struck dumb and it is left to the ‘young lady’ to reply. Turning with an enchanting smile, she says quite simply: ‘The Queen’.

This vignette was described by Albert Swaebe in his memoir Photographer Royal as his ‘most embarrassing moment’. And I can vouch for its accuracy, as the player was me.

Her Majesty’s involvement with polo began in Malta soon after her marriage to Prince Philip. There, the couple was living in a naval married quarter while Prince Philip served with the Mediterranean Fleet. Under the tutelage of his uncle, Admiral Lord Mountbatten – himself a pre-war five-goaler and author of the definitive An Introduction to Polo – the prince readily took up the game and was enthusiastically watched by his new wife.

Around the same time, after an eight-year gap owing to World War II, polo had been revived in England – by three remarkable men: John Cowdray in Midhurst, Archie David at Henley and Billy Walsh at Ham. When the royal couple returned to England in 1952, on the untimely death of King George VI, it was the former who encouraged Prince Philip to continue in polo by playing at Cowdray.

In 1955, the prince conceived the idea of creating polo fields on Smith’s Lawn at Windsor Great Park and of inviting Archie David to move his 30 ponies from Henley to the Royal Mews at Windsor. What is now the Guards Polo Club was born and, as it gradually expanded, the top yard in the mews continued to stable Archie’s ponies, with his girl grooms in the dormitories above, the Queen’s horses and carriage horses in the middle yard, the 24 club ponies – most of them donated by Archie – in the bottom yard, and, in the adjacent lower yard (six boxes), Prince Philip’s own small string.

Meanwhile, the prince formed a mediumgoal team named Windsor Park, whose colours – dark green with red piping – were based on the cassocks worn by the choristers of the chapel in Royal Lodge. Its three other players were entirely mounted by Archie, as, of course, was Archie’s own team, Friar Park, named after the Davids’ Victorian home near Henley (which, incidentally, was later bought by the Beatle George Harrison).

In those early days, prior to the re-emergence of the IRA, the need for security was far less stringent than it now is, meaning that the Queen could safely walk about at half-time, treading in like everyone else, shadowed distantly by a single inconspicuous detective. Like other polo wives, she attended virtually every weekend that her husband was playing. Later, she also came to watch her son Prince Charles, as well as her adventurous young cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who was so tragically killed while piloting his own aeroplane in August 1972, less than a week after winning the Godley Memorial Tournament on Smith’s Lawn.

Prince Philip made his first foray into high goal in 1957, and over the next 13 years

Opposite Trooping the Colour in 1972 Below The Queen presents the Cowdray Gold Cup to (from left) the Marquis of Waterford, Lord Patrick Beresford, Paul Withers and Prince Philip in 1969

won every tournament that existed at that level, with the single exception of the Queen’s Cup – probably the one he would have valued most. The nearest he came was in 1964, when, with his teammate, the famous Argentine Juan Carlos Harriott, the Windsor Park team was frustratingly run out of it by a half-goal in the final. Afterwards, when both teams were invited into the Royal Box, Prince Philip jokingly enquired of Harriott: ‘Juan Carlos, what does that word carajo, which I heard you muttering several times during the match, actually mean in English?’ Juan Carlos had to think pretty quickly, but to his eternal credit – and to the Queen’s intense amusement – almost without hesitation, he replied: ‘Oh, it means “well played, sir”’.

By way of compensation, the Queen has had the satisfaction of presenting her Cup to Prince Charles and Les Diables Bleus in 1986 and, prior to that, the Cowdray Gold Cup to Prince Philip on no fewer than three occasions, the last of which, in 1969, he won in an all-British foursome – the only time this has ever been achieved.

Along the way, Her Majesty has bred many great polo ponies, often tracing back to playing mares given to Prince Philip in Argentina. Until 1981, Prince Charles’s favourite pony had been the coloured Pecas, which the London Dockers had given him as a 21st birthday present. But then along came Happiness, who was a granddaughter of the lovely chestnut Inez, outstanding in the Palermo Open and subsequently given to Prince Philip by her owner/breeder Juan Nelson. Also worthy of mention from the same bloodline was the well-named High Tea, by Teekay out of Bali Hai, considered by many to have been extremely unlucky not to have won the Best Playing Pony award in the Coronation Cup of 1998.

In all breeding, there is an element of luck. Good fortune came the Queen’s way when Doublet, a handsome gelding by Doubtless II, out of another Argentine mare called Swaté, grew too big for polo and was given to Princess Anne to event. Trained by Alison Oliver, they went on to win the European Championships at Burghley in September that same year.

Bad luck, in retrospect, came in 1982 with the decision to sell, albeit for an enormous sum, one of her top broodmares, Height of Fashion, to Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum. A few years later, in 1989, one of the mare’s progeny, the great Nashwan, became the first Middle Eastern-owned winner of the Derby – the only classic to have eluded Her Majesty.

Racing has, of course, been an abiding passion in her life. She first embarked on ownership in 1949 – jointly with her mother – of the Irish-bred steeplechaser Monaveen, selected for them by the then-leading amateur rider Anthony Mildmay. Monaveen did well for the partnership, winning on five occasions, including (appropriately) the newly instituted Queen Elizabeth Chase at Hurst Park. On the death of her father, she inherited the Royal Studs, horses and colours, and in 1953 – the year of her coronation – came tantalisingly close to winning the Derby with Aureole, who chased home the winner Pinza, ridden by champion jockey Sir Gordon Richards.

Over the ensuing years, the Queen has bred and owned the winner of every other classic, but perhaps the loudest cheer of all was the one that greeted her filly Estimate when she returned to the paddock after triumphing in the 2013 Ascot Gold Cup. Estimate was the result of a shrewd exchange of mares with the Aga Khan, designed to bring fresh blood into both their breeding operations. The colts would be kept by their respective owner, the fillies by their borrower. The first filly was Estimate.

The racecourse at Ascot was founded in the 18th century by Queen Anne and must surely be the present Queen’s favourite – so far she has had no fewer than 71 winners there, including 22 at the Royal meetings.

But it is not only with racehorses, polo ponies and eventers that the Queen has proved to be such a successful breeder. When presented with a Haflinger by the President of Austria, she embarked on breeding them, and last year, for instance, won the In-hand Haflinger class honours at the Royal Windsor Horse Show.

Clockwise from top left The Queen and Prince Philip with Lord and Lady Cowdray; Cartier Queen’s Cup finals 2015; Prince Charles gives his mother a kiss as she presents the prizes at Guards Polo Club in 1985; riding her pony in Windsor Great Park in the 1930s

The same applies to other breeds and types: Mountain and Moorland, Highland, Fell, show hunters, piebalds, Retraining of Racehorses classes with her horse Barbers Shop (bred by the Queen Mother) and, of course, the royal carriage horses and the horses that pulled Prince Philip when he took up driving. In all, she retains an encyclopaedic memory of their sires and dams, as well as being unarguably gifted with that rare blessing – ‘an eye for a horse’. Overall, she likes her young stock to be ‘started’ (as it is called, rather than ‘broken in’) by the extraordinary Californian horsewhisperer Monty Roberts. His opinion of her is just as high as hers is of him.

The Queen has ridden since childhood. Her preference is not for side-saddle – even today she goes out astride in Windsor Great Park with her stud groom Terry Pendry. Yet, who can forget her elegance riding side-saddle for nearly 40 years at Trooping the Colour or her brilliant horsemanship when, in 1981, her charger was startled by a gunman who fired at them at close range on the approach to Horse Guards Parade. A Scots Guard street-liner, having returned to his battalion from the elite Guards Parachute Company, quickly disarmed the gunman and pinned him to the ground. As it turned out, the weapon was only a starting pistol, but no one was to know that, least of all the Queen, who rode on appearing totally unperturbed.