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Monty Roberts, but not his royally approved blue shirt, bright red bandana scarf and beige cowboy hat, will be at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral here Monday.
The funeral will bring to a close 10 days of national mourning for Britain’s beloved monarch. The elaborate royal funeral rites will also effectively bookend an Elizabethan age that ran for 70 years and usher in a Carolean one – when a Charles reigns.
Some observers may wonder why Roberts, an American horse trainer who has a 100-acre ranch in Solvang, California, will be present at a ceremony that will be attended by an estimated 500 heads of state and dignitaries including U.S. President Joe Biden; Commonwealth leaders such as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe; members of royal families from all over Europe, such as Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia; and, of course, the queen’s own close family – children (King Charles III, not least), grandchildren and great-grandchildren, along with their partners and spouses.
The reasons are clear to Roberts.
«I wouldn’t want to be the one to characterize our friendship. She had at least 50% of it,» the 87-year-old trainer says of the queen in an interview on the eve of her funeral at Westminster Abbey. «But if you ask me, we had an extremely close relationship.»
In fact, for a monarch who rigorously kept her opinions to herself, the queen’s fondness for a horse trainer revered for his gentle, affectionate methods – Roberts is often referred to as «the real Horse Whisperer» after the 1998 Robert Redford movie and 1995 Nicholas Evans book of the same name – was an open secret.
