King Charles III

[David Lockmiller]

(09-15-2022 01:35 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Great post, David - I didn't know that Monty Roberts worked with her!!
He butler once revealed that she loved dogs, horses, husband's and kids - in that particular order.

A few weeks after his visit to Windsor Castle, Mr. Roberts, back in California, awoke to a call at 2:30 a.m. It was the queen, phoning him from London to ask for the name of the British trainer he had mentioned who had studied Mr. Roberts’s methods. Mr. Roberts gave her the name, Terry Pendry, and she promptly hired him.

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. They mostly met at her royal residences at Sandringham, in the back rooms of restaurants in Windsor or in her Windsor Castle office, “with corgis all around us,” he said.

Conversations between the queen and Mr. Roberts sometimes went beyond horses. They would discuss ways to improve mental health treatment for veterans. She would ask him for his advice about problems she was having with her corgis. (Too much barking, for example.)

In 2011, the queen designated Mr. Roberts an honorary member of the Royal Victorian Order for his service to the royal family, the queen and the racing establishment. The award, photos of Mr. Roberts and the queen, and letters from her are displayed at his 100-acre ranch, called Flag Is Up Farms, which has about 90 horses.

The queen’s love for horses began when she was a young princess. She learned to ride on a Shetland pony named Peggy, which King George V, her grandfather, had given her when she was 4, and over the years, she became an avid rider. When President Ronald Reagan visited Windsor Castle in 1982, he and the queen went horseback riding.

The queen, who had her own breeding and racing operation, attended almost every Royal Ascot race in England every year starting in 1945 and owned 24 winning horses.

Mr. Roberts said the queen never missed one of his calls to discuss her horses.

Within the story itself, there is a photograph of a framed letter hand-written by the Queen in April, 2012 that is well worth reading. She became a Patron of Monty Roberts’ non-profit organization Join-Up International. The letter reads in part:

“Through Join-Up International you have dramatically changed the world [?] of training horses by promoting non-violence. This policy has also positively affected the education of children, youth at risk, domestic violence, therapeutic riding, the prison system, and psychologically damaged returning war veterans.

With all best wishes
Yours sincerely
ElyabethR


To repeat: “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.’”