The Queen’s passion for horses has spanned more than 90 years — and she will soon have some new riding companions. Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are trotting about on their first ponies.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children have become avid riders in recent months, practising their skills at their home in Norfolk, where they have spent much of the lockdown. The Queen, 94, who has continued riding her fell ponies during lockdown, is understood to be taking a close interest in her great-grandchildren’s progress in the saddle.
When the lockdown eases, George, 7, Charlotte, 5, and Louis, 2, are expected to join “Gan Gan”, as they call her, for rides at Windsor and Balmoral in the summer.
The Cambridge children are understood to have been keen on having their own ponies for some time. Charlotte’s enthusiasm was evident on her first day at Thomas’s school, Battersea, in southwest London, in 2019, when she sported a unicorn charm on her school bag. George is previously reported to have taken riding lessons on a Shetland pony belonging to Prince William’s cousin, Zara Tindall.
William, 38, and Kate, 39, are keen for their children to learn to ride, with the proviso that they should take a “hands-on” approach, helping with the grooming and mucking-out.
The ponies are thought to have eased the children’s sadness over the death of Lupo, their cocker spaniel. “He has been at the heart of our family for the past nine years and we will miss him so much,” William and Kate wrote in an Instagram post after Lupo died in November.
William, an accomplished horseman who regularly fox-hunted before the ban came into force in 2005, and still plays polo for charity events, is said to be “thrilled” his children are enjoying a hobby that he and the Duke of Sussex shared as children. The Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales took William and Harry riding at Highgrove, Charles’s Gloucestershire home.
