Flatter: Long live the equine legacy of Queen Elizabeth

Franklin, Ky.

I had not met Alan Balch before a telephone call Thursday afternoon. He was in his office at Santa Anita, he said, “looking out at the gathering storm.”

I sat in a quiet place in my car parked across a footpath from the judge’s stand overlooking the winning post at Kentucky Downs. The British syntax here was intentional.

Balch knew Queen Elizabeth II. He was close to her. Literally. At least he was one day about five years ago, to his surprise, at a luncheon at Windsor Castle.

“I wasn’t prepared to be seated next to her on her right,” he said on my podcast. “And I was.”

He and the Queen were among the VIPs at a Royal Windsor Horse Show. He was there in his longtime role with the International Federation for Equestrian Sports. When Balch managed the equestrian events at Santa Anita in the 1984 Olympics, he worked with Prince Philip. They became friends. That was how he met the Queen – and ended up seated next to her.

“She came up to the lunch right from the horse show, just wearing her show clothes and a very simple skirt and blouse and sweater,” Balch said. “Nothing formal. No gloves, nothing like that. Just coming from the show.”

At that moment, they were not the Queen and an international sports leader. They were two people who had the shared experience of riding and loving horses their whole lives.

“She said to me she was quite surprised that a mare that she had in the breeding class that she had just come from had placed third,” Balch said. “(She) had not been defeated in a breeding class that year.

“And I said, ‘Well, Your Majesty, don’t you hire the judges?’

“She looked at me and said, ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’”

An exchange more delicious than the lunch itself.

Track announcer Larry Collmus mentioned the Queen’s death Thursday at Kentucky Downs. It was a conversation starter all day at a place that looks more like an English horse farm than any racing venue in North America. More than once, it was said Her Majesty would have loved it.

In the 12 times he won races in his annual visits to Royal Ascot, trainer Wesley Ward met the Queen. A lot.

“It’s unbelievable,” Ward told me a few years ago. “The first time I met her, I went up and really didn’t know what to say to the Queen of England. She was so welcoming. She asked me all the questions for 15 or 20 minutes. We were asking questions back and forth.”

Again, at that moment, they were not the Queen and a victorious trainer. They were two horsepeople.

Balch heard a story about the time jockey Víctor Espinoza won a race for Ward at Royal Ascot in 2006.

“He was in the paddock, and I think he won the race on the first day and, of course, met the Queen,” Balch said. “Then the second day he was there, the Queen came from the carriage parade and got off. Víctor had a mount in that (first) race, and this is the part I’m not 100 percent sure of, but I think she beckoned him. And he turned around, looked at her and waved and said, ‘Oh, hi.’ She just beamed and smiled back, because, of course, that’s the way she is. She loves the riders. She loves the trainers. She loves the grooms.”

The Queen did not merely show up at Royal Ascot, which, the story goes, was the first block of dates she would fill in her annual appointment book. She was photographed riding horses into her 90s. She showed up at horse shows and exhibitions and, of course, the races. Not out of obligation. It was a personal passion.

I found that out the first time I went to Ascot. Not Royal Ascot. Just plain, old Ascot for British Champions day in 2013.

Never having been there before, I arrived early to get my bearings. I found myself in the winner’s enclosure about an hour before the first race. Not too many people were there yet, so I was surprised when a well-dressed man purposefully walked through. He very cordially asked me to step back a couple feet.

It was not a moment later when the Queen walked past me, right through the very path in which I had been standing. As I have said for years since, I could have taken the pink hat off her head had I wanted to spend a night in a nearby lockup and a lifetime living down an embarrassing photo op.

With her racing manager John Warren at her side, the Queen stood with her retinue about 10 feet from me. So I did what anyone would do in the 21st century. I hoisted my phone to take a photo.

She clearly knew it. As I was fiddling with the settings, she patiently waited for me to take the photo. I only realized that when I got done. That was because she then turned slightly to her left as the person next to me did the very same thing.

The shot of the Queen and Warren at the top of this column was taken about 30 seconds after that first one. It turned out I was so star-struck seeing Her Majesty that I did not hold the camera steady. The blurry image remains hidden in my digital files.

We have come a long way since Elizabeth had her formal coronation in 1953. That was when nascent U.S. TV networks literally raced to get films of the ceremony flown back to America. CBS actually televised the landing of its plane at Logan Airport in Boston. When Charles III has his ceremony, thousands of people standing on The Mall in London will hold up phones, many of which may be used to livestream the video to the rest of the world.

It struck me that the Queen saw the pioneering of television, the jet age and computers. How odd it was that that her death was formally announced on a medium she could not have dreamed possible in 1952. Ye old Twitter.

“God Save the Queen” is now “God Save the King.” Her Majesty’s Theatres in places like England, Canada and Australia will become His Majesty’s Theatres. The Queen’s Plate will become the King’s Plate. Or so it was said when Moira won the race last month. Asked about it again Thursday, a Woodbine spokesperson said that formality can be decided in due time. Not during a period of mourning.

Queen Elizabeth’s endurance became an indelible footnote to so many chronological comparisons I made over the years. Like when American Pharoah finally ended the Triple Crown schneid. The last time it happened with Affirmed, I wrote, Jimmy Carter was the President, “Laverne & Shirley” was the No. 1 TV show, “The Deer Hunter” would win the Oscar for best picture, “You’re the One that I Want” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John was the No. 1 song, gas was about 70 cents a gallon … and Elizabeth was the Queen.

Princess Anne and her daughter Zara are expected to take charge of the Queen’s horses, about 100 of them. So the royal lineage will be maintained. But Royal Ascot will not be the same. Dating to her days as a young princess, Elizabeth attended them 75 years in a row before the pandemic. Her health limited her to just one visit since. That was the final day of the 2021 meeting.

With all due respect to Charles III, who does not share his mum’s passion for the horse, there will be no more photo ops from awkward international visitors to the royal enclosure. No more stories exchanged at lunches with horsemen from around the world. No more betting on what colour – yes, with a “u” – Her Majesty’s hat will be in the royal procession.

If there is one lasting memory we all should have of Queen Elizabeth, it should be her celebration of Estimate winning the 2013 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot.

“That was actually during a (California Horse Racing Board) meeting,” Balch said. “I’ll never forget it was announced from the podium that she had just won. Many, many people said to each other that was the greatest picture they’d ever seen of Queen Elizabeth, because she was so naturally ecstatic the way we know you are in racing when you win a race.

“This was her thing, for sure.”