At the beginning of March, Prince William and Kate Middleton traveled back to London with their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, but for most of the last year, the Cambridge family was living at Anmer Hall, their country home on the Sandringham Estate. While there, Kate and William were busy helping with virtual homeschooling, but it turns out that the family also took advantage of their time in the country to give the kids a different type of education. On Sunday, the Times reported that Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis spent much of the last year learning to ride on their own ponies, and their father is “thrilled.”
According to the newspaper, the children had long wanted ponies of their own, and Kate and William allowed it on the condition that they be “hands-on” and help with grooming and mucking out the stables. Queen Elizabeth, who has spent much of the lockdown riding her horses, is reportedly taking a “close interest” in their progress, and the children will likely visit her in Windsor and Balmoral as soon as lockdown restrictions are lifted.
It was only a matter of time before the royal children got their own horses. In 2018, Hello reported that George, then four years old, had begun taking riding lessons on one of Zara’s shetland ponies. In October 2016, Kate told an Olympic gold-medalist that Charlotte, then only one year old, was already fond of horses. The queen received her first pony for her fourth birthday in 1930, and has since become an avid rider, a lover of horse racing, and an avid breeder. Many of her children and grandchildren were also introduced to riding at a young age, and Princess Anne and Zara Tindall eventually became professional equestrians, both representing Great Britain in the Olympic Games.
The Times added that the new ponies helped the children cope with the loss of their cocker spaniel Lupo, who died at the age of nine in November. The family also reportedly adopted another cocker spaniel after Lupo’s sister, owned by Kate’s brother James Middleton, gave birth to puppies last spring.
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