'Frail' Queen Elizabeth had final horse ride with groom before she died - as he reveals their playful inside joke
6 September 2024, 10:59
'Frail' Queen Elizabeth had a final horse ride with her stud groom before she died - as he reveals their playful inside joke.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The late Queen Elizabeth had one final ride on her pony, Emma, just weeks before she died in 2022.
Her long-standing stud groom, Terry Pendry, recalled their final trip together, saying she had become "quite frail".
He captured the emotional moment in a photograph, which he later gave to her for her scrapbook.
Read more: Queen Camilla provides update on King Charles' cancer treatment during hospital visit
Speaking on the Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth podcast, Mr Pendry said the late monarch had the typical spirit in her just eight weeks before she died.
However, she asked him to walk beside her, rather than ride, in case she fell.
"The very last time with her wasn’t a ride, I walked," he said.
"She was quite frail. She actually ended up being smaller than Queen Elizabeth [her mother], her last four years that she was quite poorly."
Referencing the mounting block she used, he said: "As she aged I used to have to once a year put another step on it. She could go up and step on to Emma, but I always used to have to lift her off."
Mr Pendry continued: "I was on my feet walking round with her, and she looked down to me and she said, 'This hasn’t happened to me since I was a princess'.
"I said, 'What?' She said, 'Someone walking alongside me like this'. And I said, 'If you want me to step away I’ll step away, or I’ll go and get another pony and I’ll ride with you'.
"She said, 'No, no, just walk with me'. And I said, 'Let me take a picture of you'. She said, 'What do you want to do that for?'
"I said: 'Well, you’d like one for your scrapbook. Your pony’s 26, you’re 96, that has to be a record.'"
Mr Pendry said the Queen later joked with him over his remarks, saying: "She came down for a chat and a final goodbye to Emma.
"Whether she was kind of thinking about things I don’t know, but she looked at me and said, 'You were very rude to me yesterday.'
"I said, 'Your Majesty, I’m awfully sorry, but what do you mean, rude? If I was, I apologise profusely – it wouldn’t have been intentional and I apologise. Was it something I said?’ 'Yes', she said, 'it was'.
"I said, 'Well, what was it?' She said, 'You said my age' – and then she burst into fits of laughter."
Despite her spirits, the Queen's decline in health had become noticeable to many in her inner circle, Mr Pendry said.
"That was just her," he said. "Last time I ever saw her.
"I had an inkling that was probably the last time I was going to see her. When I used to lift her off her pony she was getting lighter and lighter and frailer and frailer."
Mr Pendry said he would sneak the Queen's ponies into Frogmore Gardens so she could continue to ride in her later years.
When she reached her 80s, he changed her mount to small fell ponies like Emma from her much taller horses.
During the monarch's funeral, Mr Pendry was pictured stood with Emma by the Long Walk in Windsor as the coffin passed.
Mr Pendry said the Queen would fit in riding whenever she could, coming down at 10.30 in the morning to ride for an hour before going around the stable with a bag full of carrots.
Speaking of the special bond between her and Emma, he said: "Emma sort of had a sixth sense with her. It's a gift, without a shadow of doubt.
"She just had that way, the Queen, with her hands. When you gather your reins, she had hands that were silk-like. She just connected with her straight away.
"Obviously that bag of carrots helped an awful lot, and Emma knew the rustle of the brown bag.
"I promised the Queen that I will bury Emma. Her ashes will go between Burmese, who was the last horse she rode on Trooping the Colour, and the last horse that she ever rode, which was a dear horse, Sanction."
