Queen Elizabeth II was very frail the last time she saw her favorite pony, Emma.
The English monarch died on September 8, 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and was well known for her love of animals, especially dogs and horses.
Her favorite pony featured in one of the most poignant moments of the queen's funeral when the animal stood alongside Windsor Castle's stud groom and manager, Terry Pendry, as the procession passed to Elizabeth's final resting place at Windsor Abbey, Berkshire.
Pendry spoke about the queen's final goodbye to Emma, a Fell pony, with TV personality Gyles Brandreth on Friday's edition of the podcast Rosebud With Gyles Brandreth.
Pendry worked for the queen for more than 28 years and rode with her every morning at Windsor Castle. He spoke of how Elizabeth rode Emma for the last time less than three months before her death.
Newsweek contacted the Buckingham Palace press office by email, but it declined to comment.
"She actually ended up being smaller than her mother over the last few years; she was quite poorly," Pendry added.
"The last, the very last day that she rode with me was the 18th of July," he said, adding that "she was very, quite frail."
In the final years of her life, Elizabeth needed extra help mounting Emma, because "she was getting lighter and lighter, and frailer, and frailer," Pendry said.
"Her very last riding day was the 18th of July, and she got on to Emma, and I was on my feet walking on the ground. She looked down to me [and said], 'This hasn't happened to me since I was a princess... Someone walking alongside me like this.'"
When Tendry offered to get another pony to ride by her, the queen told him not to and "just walk with me." Elizabeth then offered him to get a photograph for his scrapbook.
The horse expert then recounted the final time Elizabeth saw Emma, which was the following day.
"She drove down on the 19th in her car, not to ride, but I didn't even know she was coming," Pendry said.
"She just came down for a chat and a final goodbye to Emma. Whether she was kind of out thinking about things, I don't know," the animal manager said about whether the queen knew her time was coming.
However, one of their final conversations was full of humor.
"She just looked at me and said, 'You were very rude to me yesterday,'" Pendry said on the podcast.
"I said, 'Well, if I was, I apologize profusely... it wouldn't have been intentional; was it something I said?'"
It turned out Pendry had made a passing comment about her age, for she was 96 at the time. After chiding him, "she burst into fits of laughter and fits of laughter."
"That was just her," Pendry added of Elizabeth's sense of humor.
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