Waking Queen Elizabeth up unexpectedly at two or three in the morning seems like a terrifying prospect for a royal page, but according to royal biographer Gyles Brandreth, she insisted on it for one special reason.
The late Queen was a devoted horsewoman throughout her life, and her longtime groom at the Royal Mews, Terry Pendry, told Brandreth that she was so involved in breeding horses that she insisted on watching them being born, no matter what hour of the night it was.
In his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, Brandreth wrote that Pendry was the person “who brought home to me Elizabeth’s total devotion to her horses.” The groom said, “Even here, when she was at Windsor, Paul Whybrew, the page, or whoever, would wake her up in the middle of the night, and she had a video link to Sandringham where all the racehorses are bred.”
Pendry, who also appeared on an episode of Brandreth’s “Rosebud” podcast in 2024, continued, “And if a mare was in foal, when they were about to give birth the phone would ring and she would love to see the foal born.”
Although the late Queen knew she was dying, she continued riding up until July 18, 2022, less than two months before she passed away. “She was quite frail,” Pendry told the author. The groom suggested he take a photo of her riding her beloved pony, Emma, stating, “Your pony is 26, you’re 96, that has to be a record.”
Pendry then printed the photo and gave it to Queen Elizabeth, and the next day, she said her goodbyes to Pendry and Emma before leaving for Balmoral one last time. Instead of tears, the late Queen left her groom with a joke.
“You were very rude to me yesterday,” she told Pendry, per Brandreth. The puzzled groom apologized, but didn’t understand what he’d done until the late Queen quipped, “You said my age!” Pendry added, “And then she burst into fits of laughter. That was just her—the last time I ever saw her.”
