The Queen was an incredibly hardworking monarch throughout her historic 70-year reign. Often lauded for her worth ethic, the royal’s schedule was stacked with daily meetings, public engagements and paperwork. But even the royal wasn’t immune to needing a break.
According to a long-time close friend of the Queen’s, she once had a surprising reaction after being disrupted from her work. Legendary horse trainer Monty Roberts, who died recently at the age of 91, recalled to The Post in 2023 a time that he accidentally interrupted an important meeting after calling the royal.
“About 16 years or so I called and said, ‘It’s Monty Roberts. I’d like to speak to the queen. They said, ‘One moment please – the queen is stuck in a meeting with the political people of Northern Ireland.'”
“I said I’ll call back tomorrow afternoon and about that time I heard, ‘Monty how are you?’ I said, ‘Your Majesty, they told me you’re in a meeting’.”
The Queen apparently replied: “I am in a meeting in Northern Ireland and was hoping for a way to get out of that meeting so now I’m in another room talking to you.”
“That was as close as I ever came to missing a call from her in 33 years,” the horse trainer said.
© Getty ImagesThe American horse trainer shared a decades-long friendship with the late Queen, whom he first met in 1989 when he was invited to Windsor Castle to demonstrate his methods. Monty’s friendship with the Queen, who was an avid horsewoman, was detailed in the 2023 documentary The Cowboy and the Queen.
Monty said he he helped the Queen “learn how to read that personality that horses have and do the things that cause them to be friendly with you and not a flight animal.”
The Queen’s off-duty side
© Getty ImagesThe Queen balanced her public duties with private off-duty with her family. In a emotional video in honour of the late Queen, the monarch’s grandson Prince William spoke of spending afternoons with his grandmother and grandfather, the late Prince Philip, at Windsor Castle.
“I remember many a quiet afternoon having tea with her and my grandfather at the castle, chatting, sharing stories, and seeing how completely at ease she was here, surrounded by family and her much-loved dogs and horses,” the royal said.
William wrote about how even in her later years she would ride her horses in Windsor Great Park, revealing a “side of Granny the world didn’t often see – off duty, relaxed and utterly at home.”
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