Queen Elizabeth’s last days: Monarch took her beloved pony Emma for one final ride days before her passing

Just weeks before her death, Queen Elizabeth took one final ride on her beloved pony, Emma, knowing it would be the last time they met.

In a deeply moving account, her long-standing stud groom Terry Pendry reveals for the first time that the former monarch was so frail and tiny that he had to help her off her mount – even though she had bravely insisted on climbing into the saddle herself.

And instead of riding by her side as usual, the sovereign asked him to walk alongside so she wouldn’t fall.

But Her Majesty hadn’t lost one iota of her spirit, Mr Pendry adds, even teasingly admonishing him for daring to mention her age.

He captured the beautiful, deeply personal moment in a photograph that he later took up to her at Windsor Castle where the Queen stuck it in her scrapbook with a handwritten note.

Mr Pendry, 74, was speaking in an interview with the new Rosebud With Gyles Brandreth podcast, which is out Friday.

The groom rode with the Queen for 28 years and was one of her most loved and trusted servants.

On July 18, 2022, less than eight weeks before her death, she came down to the stables as usual to see Emma, bringing the steed a bag of carrots.

There was, Mr Pendry believes, a quiet sense of finality to the 96-year-old’s purpose, although nothing was said.

The servant, who at one time looked after around 100 of the Royal Family’s horses and ponies, says: “The very last time with her wasn’t a ride, I walked. She was quite frail. “

“She actually ended up being smaller than Queen Elizabeth (her mother), her last four years that she was quite poorly.”

Referring to the mounting block she used, he explained: “As she aged I used to have to once a year put another step on it. She could go up and step on to Emma, but I always used to have to lift her off.”

“I was on my feet walking round with her, and she looked down to me and she said, ‘This hasn’t happened to me since I was a princess’.

“I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘Someone walking alongside me like this’.

“And I said, ‘If you want me to step away I’ll step away, or I’ll go and get another pony and I’ll ride with you’.

“She said, ‘No, no, just walk with me’.

“And I said, ‘Let me take a picture of you’. She said, ‘What do you want to do that for?’

“I said, ‘Well, you’d like one for your scrapbook. Your pony’s 26, you’re 96, that has to be a record’.”

To this, the late Queen replied: “I suppose you’re right.”

Mr Pendry added: “I took it up that evening. She would paste it in her little scrapbook and write a sentence underneath.”

He says that despite the underlying sadness of the occasion, the Queen was as sparky as ever, adding: “She came down for a chat and a final goodbye to Emma.”

“Whether she was kind of thinking about things I don’t know, but she looked at me and said, ‘You were very rude to me yesterday’.

“I said, ‘Your Majesty, I’m awfully sorry, but what do you mean, rude? If I was, I apologise profusely – it wouldn’t have been intentional and I apologise. Was it something I said?’

“Yes”, she said, it was.

“I said, Well, what was it?

“She said, ‘You said my age’ – and then she burst into fits of laughter. That was just her. Last time I ever saw her.

“I had an inkling that was probably the last time I was going to see her. When I used to lift her off her pony she was getting lighter and lighter and frailer and trailer.”

Despite the deterioration in her health in later years, Mr Pendry says he persuaded her that she needed exercise and fresh air, and he would sneak her fell pony into Frogmore Gardens, adjoining Windsor Castle, for her to ride.

As she neared her 80s, he had already talked her into switching to the small fell pony from her much taller horses.

Emma, 28, became her best-loved equine companion and captured the nation’s heart in one of the most touching moments at the Queen’s funeral when he stood with her by the Long Walk in Windsor as the coffin passed.

Mr Pendry said he saw the Queen on July 19 – the day after she’d jokingly admonished him – when she popped by before going to Balmoral for the summer.

He continued: “She drove down on the 19th, not to ride. I’d already said my goodbyes on the 18th and said, ‘Enjoy Balmoral’.”

“I said, ‘I wish I was coming, but you’re not going to ride, there’s no point’.”

The Queen still invited him, although he thinks her motive was his wife Sue’s raspberry jam, which she adored.

On September 8, the Queen passed away at Balmoral.

“Over the years we became very good friends,” said Mr Pendry.

It was a bond that four years earlier had led to the Queen telling him she was going to make him a Military Knight, an honour that comes with free accommodation at Windsor Castle and is normally given to commissioned officers.

With his warm nature and their shared passion for everything equine, the friendship ran deep.

He began as a professional jockey before joining the riding staff for The Household Cavalry Blues and Royals Regiment and then joining the Royal Mews at Windsor Castle.

He said the Queen fitted in riding when she could, adding: “If she could ride, the Queen’s page would let me know the evening before or ring me first thing in the morning.”

“She would come down at 10.30am. And she’d enjoy an hour. And then she’d go round with a paper bag full of carrots after that, round the stable, and she’d give every horse in the yard a carrot.”

But she needed a little extra encouragement during the pandemic.

Mr Pendry added: “I said, ‘You need to get out and get some fresh air. You’ll seize up – no disrespect. At the age you are, you’ve got to keep moving’.”

Speaking about the Queen’s special understanding with Emma, he said: “Emma sort of had a sixth sense with her. It’s a gift, without a shadow of doubt.”

“She just had that way, the Queen, with her hands. When you gather your reins, she had hands that were silk-like. She just connected with her straight away.

“Obviously that bag of carrots helped an awful lot, and Emma knew the rustle of the brown bag.

“I promised the Queen that I will bury Emma.

“Her ashes will go between Burmese, who was the last horse she rode on Trooping the Colour, and the last horse that she ever rode, which was a dear horse, Sanction.”