Even the Queen’s well-documented love of horses must have been sated by the equine extravaganza staged as part of her 90th birthday celebrations on Sunday.
No fewer than 900 – 10 for each of her years – paraded and pranced for her delectation at Windsor Castle during a birthday gala that also included a brace of dames in actor Helen Mirren and singer Shirley Bassey.
TV royalty Ant and Dec welcomed the top tier of constitutional royalty – the Queen with the first and second in line to the throne – to the party in which even the myriad horses were outnumbered by 1,500 human riders and performers, including 600 from the military and some household-name special guests.
Appropriately, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, 94, arrived in the horse-drawn Scottish state carriage.
Other highlights of the show, televised live on ITV, were 13-year-old Kinvara Garner, from north Wales, who played a horse-obsessed teenage Princess Elizabeth as part of a re-enactment of Queen’s life with set pieces from her birth, the second world war, her marriage and coronation.
Performers included singers James Blunt, Gary Barlow, Beverley Knight and Kylie Minogue from the world of pop. There was no visible evidence of the Queen wearing ear plugs as she had done at Buckingham Palace pop concerts staged to celebrate her Golden and Diamond Jubilees.
In its unusual combination of regimental marching, gun salutes, pop, historical clips outlining an ABC of the Queen’s life history, and Shetland ponies dashing to actor Imelda Staunton’s singing “Sing Sing Sing Sing”, the show was a unique homage.
Staunton’s husband Jim Carter, who played Downton Abbey butler Carson, narrated as the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery proved their display mettle, and singer Alfie Boe stoked wartime memories by singing the Vera Lynn classic A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.
Katherine Jenkins delivered the patriotic I Vow to Thee My Country, and a choir version of the coronation anthem Zadoc the Priest also filled the arena and actor Martin Clunes appeared as president of the British Horse Society.
In his gala programme address, Prince Charles said: “As we marvel at the incomparable skill of rider and horse alike, we might allow our minds to drift to Xenophon’s observation that “a horse is a thing of beauty ... none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendour”.
He added he hoped everyone watching would “join with me in wishing my mother, the Queen, the happiest of very special birthdays”.
The Queen, who could be seen clapping enthusiastically at times, watched the performance sitting next to the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Bahrain is one of the sponsors of the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
The Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, and son Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, along with her granddaughters Zara Tindall and Lady Louise Windsor got into the saddle as part of a birthday parade.
Bagpipes, caber-tossing, some rare breed cattle, gun dogs and even a regimental goat on parade featured in a show that ended with a rousing rendition of Diamonds Are Forever by Bassey and the wheeling out of a giant birthday cake.
