Queen now all smiles

Windsor – A smiling Queen Elizabeth II attended a Platinum Jubilee celebration at Windsor on Sunday, days after ill health and old age forced her to pull out of the opening of the UK parliament for the first time in nearly 60 years.

The 96-year-old monarch used a walking stick to make her way to the royal box at the show, entitled A Gallop Through History, near her Windsor Castle home west of London.

The audience gave the queen a standing ovation at the star-studded equestrian extravaganza, led by Hollywood actors Tom Cruise and Helen Mirren.

The queen on Friday spent almost an hour at the Royal Windsor Horse Show at the same venue, in an increasingly rare public appearance.

The queen last week did not open parliament, the first time she has missed the event since 1963.

Officials blamed her absence on “episodic mobility problems” – understood to be difficulties walking and standing – that have dogged her since last year.

An unscheduled overnight hospital stay last October and frailty have seen her withdraw from a string of public engagements. –