Lilibet Is Back In the Saddle

Nine months after her last time she was spotted on horseback, and a mere three weeks after her Platinum Jubbly weekend concluded, Queen Elizabeth was back in the saddle around Windsor Castle. As Radar reported, “The surprising sighting comes months after the 96-year-old monarch was told to quit riding over serious concerns regarding her health. The sighting also comes following ‘mobility issues’ that forced the Queen to cancel a slew of public and private events.”

The strategic bolding and the scare quotes around the phrase “mobility issues” are Radar’s emphatic stylizations, not mine, but I do see what they’re implying. Radar can lead a horse (named either Balmoral Leia and Fabuleu de Maucur, depending on who’s sleepier) to water, but Radar can’t make them drink. But I can: these so-called “mobility issues” and lil’ fits of rigor mortis allowed her to miss some of the biggest, most boring, most Holyroodiest parties of the year.

Doi, mate! They’re excuses. She’s been fine this whole time. Sprightly even. I wouldn’t be surprised if that doctor that apparently advised her to stay in bed was a ruse, too.

She’s just been coughing into her hanky, calling in dead to parliament, playing hooky. She hated the year-plus lead-up to the Jubbly, and wanted as little to do with it as possible. She wanted to live out her last year or so in peace at Balmoral. So she made a deal: if she could give up the horses for the nine months leading up to the big day, all the poor sods on her little island would believe that she was infirm. She’d only have to go to her own Jubbly twice!

But she couldn’t stay away, could she? Remember her secret rendezvous with her horses? That was a close one…

One of “Elizabeth’s pals” (Andrew?) tried to save face in an interview with Radar, telling the website, “The Queen has enjoyed being on her horse again. Riding again is a wonderful sign after those worries about her health. To do so at 96 is pretty remarkable. She had been able to whizz around the castle’s Quadrangle in her golf buggy to walk her corgis.”

Uh huh.

Seems like the Queen can dive back into public life. I’ve checked out the Royal Engagement calendar, one of my favorite websites, and it looks like Lilibet is free to join the Earl and Countess of Wessex tomorrow at the opening of Moray Food Plus in Duffus, Scotland.