The Queen’s racehorse trainer says ‘we’ve had a wonderful 20 years of enjoying the sport together

Nicky Henderson said she had a ‘great love’ for horses and racing

QUEEN Elizabeth’s racehorse trainer Nicky Henderson said they enjoyed “a wonderful 20 years” enjoying the sport together.

“Riding was part of childhood and racing has been part of the Royal Family for a very, very long time.

“It goes back in history but both the Queen Mother, who I originally trained for, and Her Majesty the Queen said they both shared this great love of horses and particularly the horse racing.
“When the Queen Mother died the Queen inherited the horses and (although) she probably didn’t want to, she inherited me as well!

“We had a wonderful 20 years of enjoying the sport together and she has been to racing, something very special and we’ve been very lucky to have her at the front of our sport.”

Asked about King Charles, Mr Henderson added: “He’s a very good rider, he played polo very successfully, as did Prince Philip as well.

“As much as I think even if the Queen wasn’t able to go racing very often, I know that Royal Ascot and the Epsom Derby would have been the first two things put in the diary at the beginning of the year, and they were cast in stone.

“But after that, it was very difficult for her to escape from that amazingly hectic schedule that she carried out for so many years in serving the country.

“We were just lucky to have a little bit of her time, doing something that she genuinely enjoyed…

“If you go back to when Estimate won the Ascot Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, not too many years ago, the pictures from that told the whole story of pure joy, elation, and everything was absolutely spectacular.

“Those are the pictures we remember so well and we just have to appreciate how lucky we were to have her in our world.”