Birthday party she will enjoy most of all
On Sunday night, Ant and Dec and 1,000 horses from around the world will join the Queen for a very special TV tribute
After a week like this, is it any wonder that the Queen might prefer the company of horses? One minute she is chatting with the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the next she is embroiled in a diplomatic storm, courtesy of David Cameron’s comments about Nigeria.
A few hours later, she is at a garden party on her own back lawn when a private conversation about last year’s Chinese state visit morphs into another bust-up.
though these two episodes show that our longest-lived, longest-reigning Queen remains pin-sharp when it comes to affairs of state, she will surely be left wondering whether she can safely discuss anything with anyone at all these days.
No such problems with her equine companions, though. they have never let her down and never will. And that is why she will be thrilled to escape the recent rows and immerse herself in a fixture which has been a firm favourite since she was a child — this weekend’s royal Windsor Horse Show.
this year’s event is a particularly special one as it concludes with arguably the most ambitious equestrian spectacular ever staged in this country — a two-hour show called the Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration.
tomorrow evening, nearly 1,000 horses and 1,500 humans will perform in front of the Queen, her entire family and a packed stadium while the nation watches live on ItV.
the idea is to tell the story of the Queen’s life with horses — from childhood, through the war years, marriage and Coronation and on through her 64-year reign.
Up on stage, celebrities including Imelda Staunton, Damian Lewis and Oscar-winning royal doppelganger Dame Helen Mirren will narrate. Music will be provided by stars including Dame Shirley Bassey, Andrea Bocelli, James Blunt and Gary Barlow, plus bands from all three Services.
But the real stars of the show will be the horses. Of all her many birthday celebrations, this might well be the party which the Queen enjoys most of all.
After all, the whole world is involved. the Sultan of Oman has flown over the royal Cavalry of Oman, complete with a 100-piece mounted orchestra. the royal Canadian Mounted Police have sent a substantial contingent of Mounties and their horses (she’s their Queen, too).
the crazy horse-jumping acrobats of Azerbaijan are here, along with the famous french horse-whisperer Jean-francois Pignon and his charges.
Also in town are the huasos — a team of traditional Chilean cowboys. they are famous for riding sideways at terrific speed, a skill originally developed while herding vast quantities of cattle across South America.
THe Queen is certainly an admirer because, earlier this week, she invited the entire Chilean contingent up to the castle one morning for a private preview. there, at the indoor riding school in the royal Mews, she was treated to a display of the exceptional horsemanship which has made this lot a famous international attraction (they will go straight from Windsor to a big Spanish horse show in Cordoba).
So, I have dropped in on their temporary canvas stables in Windsor Home Park to see how they do it. they are a charming bunch, and kindly (and somewhat alarmingly) invite me to have a go.
‘for us to be here in europe, in front of Queen elizabeth, with our horses and our flags — it’s a dream,’ says team leader Alfredo Moreno, 34, who divides his time between the family ranch and his job in a bank. ‘It’s a huge honour,’ adds his sister Ana Maria, 26, another team member. ‘We’re not just representing our country but the whole of South America.’
they are all bowled over to be camping in the Queen’s garden, and equally impressed that they keep on bumping into her.
‘We were out practising yesterday and she drove past in her car,’ says Alfredo. ‘You can’t imagine that someone so important would drive herself around like that.’
to cap it all, the Queen asked them — and another 250 international riders — to tea at the castle yesterday afternoon.
the group of Chilean media travelling with the team highlights the fact that the huasos’ presence here at Windsor is a big deal back home.
they are also somewhat bemused that a British journalist is going to try climbing onto a Chilean saddle. I feel national pride is at stake.
first, Alfredo talks me through the uniform. every huaso wears an intricate hand-woven poncho called a chamanto, a flat, broadbrimmed black hat called a chupalla and a pair of colossal spurs with a large spiked wheel attached to the end.
‘the horses respond to the sound of them, not to the spikes,’ he explains, jangling a silver pair. If I inadvertently dig my heels in wearing these, my mount will be half way back to Santiago before I can shout: ‘Help!’
A groom helps me aboard an obliging five-year-old called tono. He is as athletic as a polo pony but beautifully behaved. Nothing seems to spook him, fortunately — whether it’s bagpipes, strange vehicles or this inexperienced British lump sitting on his back.
I am worried about losing my footing. Instead of using ordinary stirrups, the huasos use huge wooden clogs dangling from the saddle. Alfredo shows me the rudiments of the famous art of galloping sideways. In short, if you gently tug the reins to the left and apply the lightest pressure with your left spur, then the horse will charge off diagonally to the right. And vice versa. It’s a little like pushing the tiller of a boat to the left in order to veer to the right.
And tono does it beautifully. But the whole point of the huaso routine is to do it in formation, culminating in an equestrian version of a famous Chilean dance called the cueca (in which a shy country girl is wooed by a dashing young blade).
I have two left feet at the best of times. I am certainly not about to try folk dancing on a horse.
So we try another part of the huaso display routine which involves charging around with a flag attached to a lance.
Alfredo is on one side of me with his team-mate, Luis Cortez, on the other. they both carry the Chilean colours while I am handed the Union flag. By now, a bit of a crowd is gathering.
I am so busy trying to hold the flagpole in one hand and the reins in the other that there is nothing I can do as my hat comes loose and flies off. It gets worse as my flag gets wrapped round my face and I am suddenly galloping sideways with my face buried in a red, white and blue blindfold.
BUt there’s no need to panic. tono seems to know exactly what he is doing, while Luis calmly reaches over to grab my reins and bring us to a halt. the flag is still flying. I haven’t fallen off. National pride remains intact — just.
I can certainly understand why the horse world is so excited about this weekend’s show. It will play to a sell-out crowd tonight, before tomorrow’s royal birthday finale.
the 7,000 public tickets for that sold out within minutes of going on sale. even tickets to bring a picnic and watch the event on jumbo screens along Windsor’s Long Walk had to be balloted after 70,000 locals applied for the 5,000 free passes.
By day, the showground will be full of tens of thousands of people watching thousands of horses competing in everything from top-class showjumping to the merry chaos of the Shetland pony ‘Grand National’.
the Queen takes a keen interest in it all, not least because she has 16 of her own horses and ponies entered in the various showing classes.
today’s crowd will also get the chance to see the Duke of edinburgh in action. Just a month short of his 95th birthday, the Duke will be taking part in a carriagedriving parade.
the organisers know full well that any glitches will be spotted instantly from on high. ‘the Queen and the Duke have a very personal interest in every aspect of the show, which is hardly surprising since it’s on their doorstep,’ says show director Simon Brooks-Ward.
It’s also where the Queen won the very first sporting competition of her life. this show was conceived in wartime to raise funds for Wings for Victory, the campaign for more rAf aircraft.
the very first show, in 1943, was a homespun affair, so much so that a dog managed to gatecrash the royal picnic and steal a chicken leg from King George VI’s plate (dogs have been banned ever since).
And it was here, a year later, that a teenage Princess elizabeth won a cup driving a pony phaeton with Princess Margaret at her side.
It remains one of Her Majesty’s happiest memories from those dark days of war. Little wonder she hasn’t missed a single Windsor Horse Show since.
few, surely, will have matched tomorrow evening in terms of excitement. And after a week like this, it can’t come fast enough.
The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration is on ITV tomorrow at 8.35pm.