Details of Queen Elizabeth’s Poignant Final Pony Ride Revealed
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Queen Elizabeth’s love of horses was central to her identity, forming a huge part of her public and private life. And now, intimate details of her final pony ride have been shared by her former stud groom in a moving interview two years after her death.
Terry Pendry, who took care of the late Queen’s horses for more than 28 years, spoke with broadcaster Gyles Brandreth for an hour about his memories of the time he spent with her. Speaking on Brandreth’s podcast Rosebud, Pendry recalled how he took the Queen riding for the last time on her beloved pony Emmy on July 18, less than two months before her death on September 8. He walked alongside the 96-year-old monarch and took a picture of her with the pony.
“On the last day I took the picture up to her and gifted it to her. She drove down the very next day, and she just came round for a chat and a final goodbye to Emma,” he said. “Whether she was kind of thinking about things, I don’t know. But she just looked at me and said, 'You were very rude to me yesterday'. I said 'Your Majesty I’m awfully sorry but what do you mean?…Was it something I said?' 'Yes,' she said, 'It was.' And I said 'Well what was it?' She said, 'You said my age.' The she burst into fits laughter, fits of laughter. That was just her…last time I ever saw her.”
Pendry, who was based at the Royal Mews in Windsor Castle, poignantly described the Queen getting “lighter and lighter” and “frailer and frailer” as he lifted her from her horse in her final months before her death. He also recalled her asking him never to leave her around four years before she died. “Her last four years she was quite poorly," he reflected. "I think actually when she asked me never to leave her, I think in hindsight that’s when they probably told her that she wasn’t very well. And then of course COVID hit.”
Pendry’s memories of Queen Elizabeth are clearly very fond, and he described getting to see her with her children and grandchildren behind the scenes. “To watch her with her family—particularly when we went to Balmoral. Her grandchildren just doted on her.” he said. “Her own children, it was just magical to watch it.” Pendry also described the Queen as a “brilliant mimic” who was good at accents with a “wicked” sense of humour.
Recollections of Prince Philip, however, were quite different, Recounting one time he was rebuked by the Duke for clipping a pony and he made a retort in response, Pendry said, “The Queen’s eyes went as big as an owl. 'You shouldn’t have said that', she said, then she rode off and left me. He went mental. Some of it was in German, some of it was in Dutch, some of it was in Greek, some of it was in English, but every one was a swear word…I stood my ground and I took my punishment.” He added that the Duke of Edinburgh did not, however, bear grudges.
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