UP to 20 million viewers tuned in across Great Britain - the largest export market for Irish horses - last Saturday to watch the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Adding to the spectacle was the four-legged equine cast from the Royal Mews, Household Cavalry, Mounted Police UK and Royal Canadian Police. Not forgetting Seamus, the Irish Wolfhound regimental mascot of the Irish Guards.

Eight ‘Windsor Greys’, with their elaborate royal blue mane dressings, pulled the Gold State Coach in the Coronation Procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace last Saturday. Three of the team were bred in Northern Ireland - Meg and Tyrone by Norman Brown and Newark by Penny Campbell.

Coincidentally, Norman, a keen carriage driver is from Lisburn where the Royal Ulster Agricultural Show (RUAS) was in full swing this week and also where Penny showed her Balmoral champion in-hand Connemara mare Beechmount Lulu last year.

The Coronation was live-streamed on a large screen in the Market Square in Lisburn and Union Jack bunting and flags were still on display around the town, where Balmoral Show moved to 10 years ago.

The newly-crowned King Charles visited the show at its former King’s Hall complex in 2010, while the late Queen Elizabeth II attended Balmoral Show twice, firstly as Princess in 1949 and in 2002 as part of her Golden Jubilee Tour.

Other royal family visitors to Balmoral include HRH Prince Edward and HRH The Princess Royal, Colonel of the Blues and Royals. She had visited the Regiment’s stables at Hyde Park Barracks the previous day to meet troops and horses riding in the Coronation parade.

A Coronation, followed by two Royal Shows - Balmoral and Windsor - and a golden opportunity to highlight the Irish Draught breed. Quite a week.

Did you know?

  • Echo, Icon, Knightsbridge, Meg, Milford Haven, Newark, Shadow and Tyrone are the names of the Windsor Greys that took part in the Coronation procession.
  • The Windsor Greys used for the Queen’s Coronation Day were Cunningham, Eisenhower, McCreery, Noah, Snow White, Tipperary and Tovey.
  • Atlas, the side-stepping Shire and Apollo were the two drum horses on parade.
  • Windsor Greys got their name during Queen Victoria’s reign when the horses were stabled at Windsor. They are now based at the Royal Mews, open to the public.
  • The parade route echoed to the sounds of hoofbeats for weeks beforehand with horses and soldiers rehearsing at nighttime and dawn along the 1.3 mile route.
  • Princess Anne joined the return procession to Buckingham Palace on horseback, in her role as “Gold-Stick-in-Waiting,” a bodyguard position dating back to Tudor times. In an interview with Canada’s CBC News, the practical Princess Royal joked that the role “solves my dress problem!”
  • Dreadlocks and hair extensions were some of the most inventive answers suggested on social media about the ornate blue decorations worn by the Windsor Greys. Blue is the colour of the House of Windsor and thanks to Jane Terry’s fascinating Stable Courtyard and Riding Halls Facebook page, this query was answered by herself, Peter Van Kooij and Frances Roche, a recently-retired Master Saddler at the Royal Mews. “They are called mane dressings. They are made by the saddlers at the Royal Mews and attached by ribbons through laid-down plaits along the neck. I was involved in making the ones for the Golden and Diamond Jubilees, the red ones are used frequently, but the blue were made specially for the Coronation. The colour was chosen by the King.”
  • Coronation-themed accessories were also spotted at Badminton where Caroline Clarke wore Union Jack ribbons in her hair and her horse Touch Too Much had matching blue, white and red elastic plaiting bands at the first horse inspection. Lauren Innes went one better and modelled a paper crown trotting up her Global Fision M.
  • King Charles has 15 entries at this year’s Royal Windsor Horse Show where the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment and The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery performed at this week’s show.
  • Pony Club mounted games are another Windsor feature and East Galway Hunt Pony Club member Rochelle Trappe competed there three times on the Irish team with the palomino Trooper. “I think her funniest memory was joking about the games with Prince Philip, not knowing who he was. He said the UK would win and Shelly was saying Ireland would beat them, no problem,” her mother Ann recalled. Rochelle also competed another aptly-named pony in show jumping and Pony Club activities: Windsor Grey.
  • Book Law, the 1927 Coronation Stakes winner, is the dam of Archive. A racecourse flop, he went on to sire none other than Arkle.
  • The poignant sight of Emma, said to be the late Queen Elizabeth’s favourite pony, standing at Windsor’s Long Walk during the monarch’s funeral cortege last September, captured hearts around the world. A life-size topiary of the Fell pony will feature at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.
  • Burmese, the black mare ridden side-saddle by Queen Elizabeth at 18 consecutive Trooping The Colour ceremonies, was a gift from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1969, when they performed their famous musical display at Royal Windsor Horse Show. Another black mare, the seven-year-old Hanoverian Her Noble, was gifted to the new King last week by the RCMP, a gesture quickly picked up on and promoted by the Hanoverian Verband’s ‘Durch Vorsprung Marketing’ team. Her Noble’s dam was bought in Verden by the RCMP for their stud near Ottawa where they breed Hanoverian horses for their troop.

    • Commdt. Geoff Curran competing Glengarra Wood at Balmoral this week \ Anne Hughes

    (Full Balmoral show jumping and showing coverage in next week’s issue)