Queen loved horse racing 'naughtiness' and giggled at jockeys with bums in air
The late Queen was horse racing’s greatest champ, notching up more than 1,800 wins with the hundreds of thoroughbreds she owned over the years as she indulged her greatest passion.
She became an expert on “the turf”, admired for her incredible knowledge of the sport, and the lineage of its bloodstock. But according to sports presenter Clare Balding, whose grandfather, father and brother all trained the Queen’s horses, she also loved the “naughtiness” of horse racing.
And the sight of a jockey with his bum in the air could make Her Majesty dissolve in a fit of the giggles. Clare has told how she had the privilege to watch many horse races alongside the Queen, seeing close up how the monarch let her guard down as she cheered on jockeys in her gold, scarlet and purple colours.
The Queen, pictured in 1988, loved horse racing (PETER BROOKER / Rex Features)Clare, 53, said: “There’s a jockey called Richard Hughes, who was the most beautiful horseman, but he always stood there, very tall, at an angle and it made her laugh. If you stood and watched a race with her, which I have done, she’d say something like, ‘Oh, look at Hughesy out the back with his bum in the air, looking like he’s got so much horse’.”
Clare, a leading amateur flat jockey in the late 1980s, was a toddler when she first met the Queen, and learned to ride on a “little fat Shetland Pony”, which had been a present from the monarch, 96. Speaking on Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast, Clare said the Queen had a deep love for racing.
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She said: “She liked that world and was very, very knowledgeable about horses.” And she felt most relaxed, and at home, at the stables, away from the pomp of her royal duties. Clare said: “She loved the way the jockeys or the stable lads and lasses were with her. I think she loved the naughtiness of racing.”
Clare with the King last October (Arthur Edwards)She also had a great rapport with the jockeys and loved Frankie Detorri and Ryan Moore, Clare revealed. She said the Queen could make Moore – “who never smiles with anybody” – laugh. Clare said: “Because I think she’ would say to him, ‘Don’t be so grumpy’.”
Clare believes the King may now be following in his mother’s footsteps after discovering a love for horse racing late in life. Last year, King Charles, 75, was pictured looking emotional after his horse, Desert Hero, won the King George V Stakes, his mother’s favourite race.
Clare said: “He hasn’t traditionally been a racing man. He loves horses and is a very fine polo player. When he had a winner at Royal Ascot last year, I think it overwhelmed him how much he felt it for the first time. He really got it.”
At Sandringham, the royals’ estate in Norfolk, there is a life-size sculpture of the Queen’s racehorse Estimate, who won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in 2013, the first time a reigning monarch had owned the winner in 207 years. Clare revealed that the Queen became a bit of a “horse whisperer”, inspired by the “join up” philosophy of American trainer Monty Roberts.
Queen Elizabeth II and Clare Balding on stage during 'The Patron's Lunch' celebrations for The Queen's 90th birthday in 2016 (Getty Images Europe)She said: “It was basically where horses would come with you because they wanted to and how you made that relationship work. She started employing those techniques with her young horses before they got to their trainers.
“I went and watched yearlings being presented to her and saw her confidence around young horses, who frankly could be pretty unpredictable. This is quite late in life.
The Queen with Clare's dad, horse trainer Ian Balding, in 2005 (Racing Post)“And even around foals, she would be straight up to them, feeling their legs and running her hand along their back, watching them walk and watching them trot. Seeing how they would behave. She really, really, had a deep love for racing.”
The Queen saw racing as an escape from her day job, a copy of the Racing Post always mixed in with her correspondence. Trainer Richard Hannon once said: “She used to say to me, ‘It’s nice to come to a place that does not smell of fresh paint’.”
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