King Charles III

[David Lockmiller]

The Queen, horses, and Monty Roberts:
New York Times story By Jenny Gross Sept 12

In April 1989, Queen Elizabeth II had just finished lunch with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who was in Britain to discuss the relationship between the Soviet Union and the West. Yet the monarch had another visitor to prepare for.

Monty Roberts, a renowned American horse trainer, had just arrived in Windsor, England, from his ranch in Solvang, Calif. Months earlier, the queen had read articles about Mr. Roberts’s training technique, in which the animal is taught to see the rider as a member of its herd, rather than as a master. She sent one of her horse trainers to California to observe Mr. Roberts’s methods, and, soon after, invited him to see her.

Mr. Roberts, 87, recalled his visit to see the queen — and their subsequent three-decade-long friendship. On that April 1989 trip, Mr. Roberts demonstrated his techniques for the queen using 23 of the royal family’s horses, including one belonging to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The Queen Mother was so moved by his work that she started crying, he recalled.

Mr. Roberts said he started visiting England six or seven times each year for hourslong meetings with the queen to advise her on her horse training program. . . . She encouraged Mr. Roberts to write a book to spread awareness of his methods, and the book, titled “The Man Who Listens to Horses,” became a best seller.

“She believed that no one should ever say to any human being or animal, ‘You do what I tell you to do, or I’ll hurt you.’”

On that first trip to Windsor Castle in 1989, Mr. Roberts saw a woman in riding clothes, brushing a horse in the stalls and thought she worked in the stables, until the crown equerry said to Mr. Roberts, “You must realize this is Queen Elizabeth II.”

“When the queen was with horses, she was a horse person,” Mr. Roberts said. “She didn’t want to be the queen.”

Mr. Roberts recalled one day when they were riding together. Through the Windsor Castle gates, a visitor called out to them and said, “Do you work here?” The queen stopped her horse and replied, “Yes, I certainly do,” and he and the queen rode off, laughing. Mr. Roberts remembers saying, “Your majesty, that woman will never know she spoke with Queen Elizabeth II,” and the queen replied, “I don’t want people to know when I’m riding around who I am — I just want them to know I love horses.”