Roy­al Wind­sor Horse Show

Oh, what fun we had! First of all, Wind­sor is a beau­ti­ful spot. John and I had been there years ago as new­ly­weds, but I did­n’t remem­ber much about it beyond that the Roy­al Stan­dard flies above if the Queen is in res­i­dence, and the Union Jack if she is away. Well, the flag was fly­ing yes­ter­day, and as you can see from the tiny, tiny yel­low blob in the pic­ture above, she was at the show! Nev­er an ardent Roy­al­ist, I must nev­er­the­less con­fess to a def­i­nite thrill at being 75 yards away from the monarch.

I was espe­cial­ly pleased at the day because it com­bined Avery’s and John’s favorite thing (hors­es) with my favorite thing (food). This year was the inau­gu­ra­tion of the Roy­al Wind­sor Food and Drink Fes­ti­val, a cel­e­bra­tion of all things organ­ic and local, in a nod to the Prince of Wales’ obses­sion with healthy, nat­ur­al food in which I com­plete­ly am in agree­ment. I had to make a men­tal note, how­ev­er, not to be an igno­rant ass and ask for avo­ca­dos to go with the excel­lent local toma­toes, or a lemon for my Lon­don gin. Such is the glob­al super­mar­ket mind­set into which I have lazi­ly fallen.

We start­ed out with a beef­burg­er from the incom­pa­ra­ble Dayles­ford Organ­ic farmshop, unfor­tu­nate­ly well done for all those tire­some peo­ple who go weak at the knees at what they think is dan­ger­ous­ly under­cooked beef, but there you go. It was tasty any­way, served with real mus­tard-seed mus­tard (labelled in an unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly French-tol­er­at­ing way, “moutarde”) and fried onions, in a floury bap, which is a nice soft British roll not to be men­tioned in the same breath as their awful spongy Amer­i­can com­pan­ions, sor­ry to be a snob. Then we strolled over to the Cas­tle Are­na to catch the very tail end of the Show Jump­ing Cham­pi­onship in which our favorite from Sheffield, Robert Smith, won hand­i­ly. Sweet 17-year-old Han­nah Paul came in sec­ond, which must sure­ly bode very well for her future. Then John could­n’t resist any longer: the whole event was spon­sored by Land Rover, and his radar was already out in full flow, hav­ing spot­ted at least three thou­sand Defend­ers on the short walk from the train to the show. So we mean­dered over to some­thing called “The Land Rover Expe­ri­ence,” where real­ly goofy peo­ple as enthu­si­as­tic as John (there were sur­pris­ing­ly enough to make quite a long queue!) got to sit next to a pro­fes­sion­al dri­ver on a closed course (you always hear that in car things, don’t you) and go up and down and around and hang near­ly side­wise and do all the oth­er mag­nif­i­cent things that only a Land Rover can do. The poor boy who would­n’t ordi­nar­i­ly queue to be giv­en a thou­sand pounds had no prob­lem stand­ing in the hot sun, sand­wiched in between a smok­ing teenag­er and a cou­ple who clear­ly should have sim­ply got a room. What did they think they were going to be able to do in the Land Rover with the pro­fes­sion­al dri­ver along for the ride? Avery opt­ed to wait with John while I did a quick spin through the food­ie hall, and it was mag­nif­i­cent! I sam­pled so many things that my stom­ach was wail­ing in protest. Chilli crack­ers, smoked mack­er­el pate, native Ched­dar cheese, Wilt­shire ham, straw­ber­ries and cream, smoked salmon and cream cheese, gin­ger snaps! I drew the line, how­ev­er, at ale, wine or cham­pagne. Com­plete­ly over­whelmed by sheer choice and want­i­ng to buy some of every­thing, I wad­dled back to where the two were still in the queue and we agreed that John would ring me on my mobile when he was close to the front and Avery and I would come back from wher­ev­er we were.

We end­ed up at the Shet­land Pony Grand Nation­als, which is the most hilar­i­ous, seem­ing­ly out of con­trol event. Dozens of tiny Shet­land ponies with their fluffy feet all line up at a start­ing spot, rid­den by small chil­dren, and then the gun goes off and they ALL race togeth­er over jumps, around the are­na, fast as light­ning. This event was open to all of Great Britain, so there were Irish, North­ern Irish, Welsh, Scot­tish and Eng­lish lit­tle rid­ers. You would not believe the speed, and at such a low lev­el! Just on Avery’s sight line. Pret­ty thrilling, I must say, and the chil­dren were so proud. Just as it end­ed John called, and we raced back to Land Rover World, to find that he had been plucked from the line as the one sin­gle per­son and was already in a car, with some ran­dom fam­i­ly, about to tip over and be squashed like a bee­tle. But no, all was well, and he was beam­ing from ear to ear when he got out.

Then the three of us piled over to the are­na where Her Majesty the Queen’s Chal­lenge Cup For Ser­vices Team Jump­ing (what a mouth­ful!) was to have its com­pe­ti­tion. An amaz­ing sight: three by three hors­es and rid­ers, each team rep­re­sent­ing some spe­cif­ic branch of “all serv­ing Offi­cers and Oth­er Ranks from any Unit, Hunt, Polo, Rid­ing, or Sad­dle Club of the Roy­al Navy, Roy­al Marines, Army, Roy­al Air Force, and Mount­ed Police, and the Aux­il­iary mem­bers of those Ser­vices… to be rid­den in uni­form.” It was absolute­ly glo­ri­ous. Phas­es one and two of the com­pe­ti­tion had already hap­pened, so we were left on Sat­ur­day with the final com­pe­ti­tion in which just one rep­re­sen­ta­tive of each team went the course of jumps. But first, oh my. All the team mem­bers came majes­ti­cal­ly into the are­na, warm­ing up, all in their mag­nif­i­cent uni­forms, some com­plete with tru­ly fun­ny hats, all sad­dle pads marked with the team name. And women! Since 1996 they’ve been allowed. Part­way through the warmup, there was a hush. “Ladies and Gen­tle­man, Her Majesty the Queen has gra­cious­ly entered the are­na.” Every­thing stopped and “God Save the Queen” began to play on the loud­speak­er and it was real­ly excit­ing to lean down and tell Avery to put her hands to her sides and stand straight and tall. Even the elder­ly pen­sion­er cou­ple behind me who had clev­er­ly brought fold­ing chairs rose solemn­ly and stood at atten­tion. Final­ly the song was over and the Queen sat down, and every­one else who had a seat sat down, and the com­pe­ti­tion began. Great jump­ing, real­ly high and scary. After that was the com­plete­ly sil­ly and time-wast­ing “House­hold Cav­al­ry Best Turned Out Troop­er,” which is in effect a horse beau­ty con­test. No actu­al high heels and bathing suits were pro­duced, but all the com­peti­tors did was walk toward the Queen’s Box in an order­ly fash­ion, turn towards her and… stand there, look­ing nice­ly “turned out.” Believe you me, they were all fan­cy. No unto­ward poop­ing as so many of Avery’s ponies have done in com­pe­ti­tion, all fluffy manes and tails, superbly glossy coats and the rid­ers had swords!

OK, I must go tend to my pork chops (pur­chased at the Fes­ti­val from Dayles­ford!), aspara­gus and fes­tive hol­i­day dress­ing, although there is no hol­i­day. Wait, wait, it’s Moth­er’s Day! It isn’t any such thing here, so I must remem­ber to call my two dar­ling moth­ers and say “We love you.” I have a spe­cial present for each on order, but the Roy­al Mail deliv­ers for no Amer­i­can hol­i­day, so I must be late. More on the show tomorrow.