Reiningsupreme
Queen rides out Covid-19 storm
The Queen made her first public appearance since the start of the lockdown on a horse in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
The release of the authorised photographs of the 94-year-old will be seen as a morale-boosting signal that life is beginning to return to normal as restrictions are eased.
The Queen has been staying in her private apartments at the castle with a few key household staff who have been isolating with her and the Duke of Edinburgh since she arrived from Buckingham Palace on March 19.
Wearing a colourful headscarf and dressed in a tweed jacket, jodhpurs, white gloves and boots, she was riding on a 14-year-old fell pony called Balmoral Fern. She is said to have left the castle most mornings by a side gate to drive to Home Park where she rides.
The Queen has been a passionate horse lover and breeder of thoroughbred racehorses throughout her reign. She went riding with Prince Andrew in a show of support after he stepped back from royal duties following a disastrous BBC interview about his association with Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender.
Terry Pendry, her head groom, has been following social distancing requirements since the lockdown began and disinfects the saddles and bridles to avoid the risk of transmitting the virus. He has altered the stable’s exercise route so it now runs alongside the Queen’s living quarters, enabling her to inspect all her horses each day.
To mark her 94th birthday staff at the royal stable paraded all the horses in front of the Queen and Prince Philip, who will be 99 next week, The Mail on Sunday reported.
No one outside a group of 22 staff who are isolating alone or see only their immediate family is allowed access to Upper Ward, which houses the private apartments occupied by the Queen and
Prince Philip. The staff in what is known as HMS Bubble include Paul Whybrew, the page of the backstairs, as well as chefs and cleaners.
The team includes Tony JohnstoneBurt, the master of the household, and Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary.
Staff who live in Home Park, including Angela Kelly, her senior dresser, are taken to the queen’s quarters from their homes in a car that is regularly disinfected.
Johnstone-burt, a former vice admiral, said in an email to staff in the ‘‘bubble’’ that the challenges of selfisolating ‘‘have parallels with being at sea away from home for many months, and having to deal with a sense of dislocation, anxiety and uncertainty’’.
The Queen has not been pictured in public since being driven away from Buckingham Palace.
She has made two televised addresses to the nation during the lockdown. – Sunday Times