The Daily Telegraph - Features
Introducing Noble, a horse fit for the King
It would cap his return to public life if Charles rode the mare at Trooping the Colour, says Ed Cumming
There are few relationships more ancient or distinguished than between a great leader and his steed; Alexander the Great had Bucephalus, the Duke of Wellington had Copenhagen and Ulysses S Grant had Cincinnati.
Since March last year, the King has had Noble, an eight-year-old black mare. Last June, he rode the horse with remarkable control during Trooping the Colour – the first time the monarch had appeared on horseback at the event since Elizabeth II in 1986.
Now it has been reported that the King plans to repeat the feat on Noble in June. Where earlier leaders rode for practical purposes, His Majesty’s determination to saddle up is a show of strength, proof that the cancer he is fighting will not keep him from public life.
The horse was given to him by the Canadian Mounted Police just before his Coronation as part of a tradition dating back to 1904. Through the late Queen’s reign, the Mounties presented her with eight horses and she rode the first, Burmese – received in 1969 – at Trooping the Colour for 18 years.
Noble was named in an annual “Name the Foal” contest held among the Canadian police. The King met it soon afterwards at the Royal Mews, Windsor, where she is stabled. During last year’s Trooping the Colour, the mare looked skittish at times, perhaps fazed by the crowds and loud noises. The King could be seen gently reassuring her.
The late Queen was famous for her love of horses, and was a keen racegoer as well as rider. The King’s love of racing is less pronounced, but he has just as strong an equestrian streak.
Like almost every member of the Royal family, the King learnt to ride as a child, taught by his mother at the age of four. But where his sister, Anne, was fearless over the jumps – and would go on to compete in the Olympics – he was less bold.
This was one advantage of polo, which he took up at Gordonstoun in 1961, when he was 13. “I was all for it,” the King has said of the sport. “At least you stay on the ground.” By 1964, he was taking it more seriously, playing with Prince Philip at the Household Brigade Polo Club.
“He is strong, and he has guts,” Major Ronald Ferguson, the royal polo manager, once said. As the Prince of Wales, the King endured several serious injuries. In Prince Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare, he describes seeing his father fall during a match: “As a boy, I’d seen Pa take [a hard] fall, the horse giving way, the ground simultaneously smacking and swallowing him. I remembered thinking: ‘Why’s Pa snoring?’ And then someone yelling: ‘He’s swallowed his tongue.’”
He said that this and other polo injuries had left the King with “constant pain” in his neck and back, which he remedied with daily exercises, including handstands. Despite the falls, the King kept playing polo until 2005, having passed on the love for the sport to his sons.
In a statement released last week, Buckingham Palace said of the King’s cancer treatment that it was “sufficiently pleased with the progress made so far that [he] is now able to resume a number of public-facing duties”. The King’s determination to ride in public, then, might be seen as a reflection of a desire to lead by example.
It is also a good PR opportunity for the Household Cavalry, after the incident last week in which five of its horses ran loose through central London, having thrown their riders. Newspapers and TV news were dominated by striking images of a blood-soaked grey, Vida, and a black horse, Quaker, galloping past some of the capital’s most famous landmarks.
Whistleblowers have suggested the horses were being kept in filthy stables and only exercised for an hour a day. Although the Household Cavalry has said it takes the wellbeing of its horses “extremely seriously” and they are exercised daily, it could still use a boost.
If Noble can help restore faith in equine displays in the capital, as well as proving that the King can still lead a physically and mentally demanding display, despite his diagnosis, it will prove well named.