'The Queen came out with a bag of carrots, and off she toodled back to the castle happy'

A version of this article was first published on June 18

Katie Jerram-Hunnable was used to getting phone calls from the Queen. Ever since a missive from her Majesty’s stud groom, Terry Pendry, came in to ask if she could ride and train show horses for the Queen, the Essex-based equestrian became a regular at Windsor Castle.

“I was asked by her stud groom Terry Pendry to go to Sandringham and then I had to give Her Majesty a ring and talk about the horse," said Jerram-Hunnable in an interview given before the Queen's passing at the age of 96. "She wanted to know if he was good enough to be retained to become a show horse. Her passion is her horses and you can see that in the way she is around them. She smiles and enjoys every minute of it when she watches them."

Jerram-Hunnable’s yard is now a home for some of the Queen’s most famous retired race horses – notably former National hunt star Barbers Shop, with whom she has had great success in the show ring, as well as First Receiver who finished second at Royal Ascot two years ago in the Hampton Court Stakes. But the Queen didn't just retire her horses, she actively kept in touch and wanted to know every detail about how they were getting on.

There were regular invitations for the horses to return to Windsor Castle, so that Jerram-Hunnable could ride privately in front of the Queen, as well as updating her with regular videos. “She wants to know everything about their welfare," she added during June's interview. "After you ride them for her, she always comes out with a brown paper bag with chopped carrots. For as long as I have known her, she always hand feeds her horse a carrot herself – it's always carrots. It’s so loving and caring. After she has watched the horse and gave him a titbit, she pops back in the car and off she toodles back to the castle as one really happy lady.”

But it was not all feeding carrots. The Queen was renowned for a lifelong passion and deep knowledge of horses. “One day she said to me ‘he’s got super footfall’, which you pick up from just listening to the horse move on a road and it was amazing that she understood that. Any little problem you have with a horse, you can talk about with her.”

From the age of four when she was given her first pony, the Queen delighted in the company and ownership of horses ranging from Native ponies to her prizewinning racehorses. Racing Journalist and Broadcaster Brough Scott believed horses provided a welcome relief from the demanding duties of a Monarch.

“All other relationships are complicated because she was the Queen. One has to follow all sorts of rules of etiquette in her company, so it must have been very hard for her to be natural around all that. She appeared to be at her most natural around horses and around the people with those horses.

“I remember a picture of her as a child on a pony, and staring back at you was a very happy little girl. Many years later, her horse Estimate won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot – the photo depicts her huge pride and joy of winning a big race. I think horses gave the Queen her independence. She must have loved doing things where you do not have deference – and that was horses.”

In an interview with the JockeyClub.co.uk ahead of The Cazoo Derby in June, several jockeys spoke about what it meant to ride for the Queen. Five-time British Champion jockey Willy Carson was one of them. “When you put the colours on, a jockey grows six inches. The Queen is the most famous woman in the whole wide world.

“You had to be careful what you said, because she would pick you up if you got it wrong about a horse. Her mind was still very, very sharp, and the breeding was right at the forefront of her brain. If you just slipped up and said this horse is out of the wrong mare, she would be straight on you.”

Hayley Turner was one of the first female jockeys to ride for the Queen but the story goes beyond that. “My first Royal Ascot winner, I beat hers by a neck," she said. "She rang Michael Bell – I ride a lot of his horses – and said: ‘I was very cross to start with, but then I thought, no, very well done. Well done, Hayley.’ So even though I beat her, she sent on her best wishes, so that was good. She’s a good loser. But she’s had more Royal Ascot winners than me!”

Turner’s mother retrains and re-homes racehorses after they retire, finding them new careers and was trying to advertise her services. “There was one morning that Her Majesty came to look around the horses at Michael Bell’s yard. Afterwards, we all went into the kitchen, and my mum had just started re-homing racehorses and she’d made this really tacky laminated folder that she’d just given me to give to Michael Bell, in case he had any retired racehorses that needed re-homing.

“Her Majesty came in and picked it up. I was like: ‘Oh no!’ She just started flicking through it and she was giving no one any of her attention. When she stood up to leave she looked at me and said: ‘May I take this with me?’ I said: ‘Yes ma’am’, and ever since she sent my mum two or three horses every year.

“If they’re show jumping, dressage, whatever they are doing she was really keen to know because it’s important. Horses finish their careers quite early and they’re obviously athletic and ambitious animals and for them to just get put in a field... I think she cared that they have something to do to suit them, whether that’s a field companion or show jumping, or dressage, or whatever. She cared a lot about horses.”

Jockey Tom Marquand had tea with her when she would visit trainer Richard Hannon’s yard. “It’s pretty evident within a few seconds that it’s you that’s having a lesson about horses and not her. She would come in like any other owner and jump in the car with Richard Hannon Snr and drive about looking at horses and talking about horses. I think that’s what is so admirable about the amount she put into racing – it comes from a pure passion for it, there is that knowledge that is born from a passion, not just a little bit of interest.”

In her youth the Queen would gallop up the track at Royal Ascot before the start of each race day, headscarf flying, and no protective helmet such was her confidence around horses. Even last year she was still riding her Fell pony, Balmoral Fern, around Windsor Castle.

While the Queen was not able to attend Royal Ascot this year, she might still have allowed herself a smile at the thought that she once used to gallop up the track with a wild, untrammelled joy, so rarely available to her.