Monty Roberts, the horse trainer who was one of Queen Elizabeth’s closest callers, died at 91 on July 31. Queen Elizabeth had invited him to the U.K. in 1989 to teach his gentle horse training methods, and the relationship that followed lasted 33 years.
Roberts said he and Queen Elizabeth shared hundreds of phone calls over those years. He described her as one of the few people he could reach at any time, and he said the connection began after she asked him to work with her on horse training.
Queen Elizabeth and Monty Roberts
Queen Elizabeth was a lifelong equestrian, and Roberts said he helped her learn how to read a horse’s personality and make the animal friendly rather than reactive. He also said, “You cannot fool a horse.”
Roberts described that trust in unusually personal terms: “She believed me and my God, I would take a bullet before I would deceive her in any way.” In 2023, he also recalled a call that began with, “It’s Monty Roberts. I’d like to speak to the Queen,” before a staff member replied, “One moment please – the Queen is stuck in a meeting with the political people of Northern Ireland.”
Northern Ireland and the phone call
Roberts said Queen Elizabeth later told him, “I am in a meeting in Northern Ireland and was hoping for a way to get out of that meeting so now I’m in another room talking to you.” He added, “That was as close as I ever came to missing a call from her in 33 years.”
That recollection shows how unusually direct their contact was: Roberts was not describing a ceremonial exchange, but a private line that could interrupt a political meeting. He said the Queen took his calls even when she was otherwise occupied, which made the friendship unusual even by royal standards.
Roberts’ death on July 31 closes that chapter, but the story leaves one practical measure of the bond in place: hundreds of calls over 33 years. For readers trying to understand why his death is being noted now, the answer is simple — his name stayed tied to Queen Elizabeth because their friendship was part of her personal routine, not just her public life.
