Exclusive: How Queen Elizabeth's Friendship with California Cowboy Monty Roberts Changed Both of Their Lives

Queen Elizabeth’s love of horses was legendary. Whether it was going out for a ride, breeding horses or watching the races, there was nothing that she enjoyed more—and her passion for equestrian pursuits led her to one unlikely friendship.

As a California cowboy, horse trainer Monty Roberts never expected to become friends with the late Queen, but as his daughter Debbie Loucks tells Marie Claire, the two had much more in common than anyone expected.

Roberts died on July 31 after a career that transformed the equestrian industry, and his non-violent horse training methods attracted the interest of Queen Elizabeth, who invited him to Windsor Castle in 1989. Traditionally, horses were broken in and saddled by using force, but Roberts relied on body language and communication instead.

Loucks recalls her father admitting that the “only time” he felt extremely nervous was when he did his first demonstration for Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother. Roberts successfully saddled the horse, and Loucks shares how the Queen Mother had “tears forming in her eyes” when she greeted him.

“The [late] Queen came down right after the Queen Mum and said, ‘You know, that was incredible. Do another, do more,’” Loucks shares. And more is what Roberts did, staying on for a week to train even the largest ceremonial horses without using any force.

The two struck up a friendship that lasted three decades, and Loucks shares that her father was impressed by the depth of Queen Elizabeth’s knowledge of the equestrian world. “I think he was amazed by her horsemanship, amazed at how good she was at several things,” Loucks says. “She could really eyeball a horse, you know, she could really read a horse and she had an eye for confirmation. She had an eye for talent.”

The late Queen would often speak to Roberts on the phone, and he was one of the few people she’d take a call from no matter where she was—even if it was in a government meeting.

It was the late Queen who encouraged Roberts to write his first book, The Man Who Listens to Horses, and she was instrumental in getting his documentary, Shy Boy: The Horse That Came in from the Wild, produced.

“She was like, ‘Videos go away. Books are forever. You have to do a book,’” Loucks recalls. “She walked him into the publishers, said there must be a book. She went to the BBC, said there must be a documentary and that's how Shy Boy came about. You know, she was orchestrating this forward. She believed it.”

Roberts went on to write a number of other books on horsemanship, and his friendship with Queen Elizabeth was chronicled in the documentary The Cowboy and The Queen. In 2011, the late Queen honored Roberts as an honorary Member of the Royal Victorian Order.

Loucks recalls how Queen Elizabeth had a knack for naming not only horses, but all kinds of animals. “He always told little stories about how she named different animals and how they fulfilled that,” Loucks tells Marie Claire. Roberts had many deer living on his property, and he “used to tell deer stories all the time” to Queen Elizabeth, who loved exchanging her own tales with Monty.

After bottle-feeding a baby deer back to health, Roberts asked the late Queen for her advice on a name. “Dad finally went to her and said, ‘I've got to name the little baby deer and it's just so sweet, and here's some photos and you know, what do you think?” Loucks shares. “And she said, ‘Benediction. I’d name him Benediction.’”

When Roberts told Queen Elizabeth it was “a big name for a little deer,” Queen Elizabeth replied, "Well, you know, you Americans, you turn things into gangster names. You can call him Benny if you want to,” Loucks says with a laugh. “But that’s the other thing he loved about her, her sense of humor."

Today, Loucks is carrying on her father's legacy at the Monty Roberts International Learning Center, located at the California Horse Center in the Santa Ynez Valley. As well as offering online and in-person courses, the center "is a grand example of the most progressive thoughts in keeping horses healthy," Loucks says. "I'll use Dad's voice as a megaphone for that," she adds, noting that her late father's non-violent methods will be "the future for horses."

"Dad believes that as strongly as I do," Loucks shares.

Read Monty's Books