All the Queen's Horses

Bill Curling.  Published by Chatto & Windus.

Hard Cover.

Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Numerous Colour & b/w Illustrations / Photographs (illustrator). First Edition. Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Green cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership inscription. 146 pages clean and tight.

All The Queen's Horses is one of the most exciting racing histories ever to be told.  It is the full story of the breeding, training and racing of the horses that have carried the Queen's colours in the first quarter century of her reign.  It recaptures not only the splendid achievements of her horses but tells too of the bitter disappointments that attend a passionate involvement with the Turf.  The story ends on a glorious note.  In 1977 Dunfermline, the Queen's gallant filly, won both the Oaks and the St. Leger.  These triumphs, happy and popular victories for the Silver Jubilee Year, were symbolic of Her Majesty's generous contribution to, and her great personal enjoyment of, the sport of kings.  The Queen has won four out of five of the classic races and a host of lesser trophies, and Curling's narrative sparkles with tales of many of the best-loved men and horses of the post-war racing years.  The closest that Her Majesty has come to winning the Derby was in the year of her Coronation when Gordon Richards brought Pinza home four lengths clear of the Queen's Aureole.  What a splendid victory it would have been in that of all years!  And yet after the race Her Majesty invited the winning owner, Sir Victor Sassoon, and his trainer, Norman Bertie, to the Royal Box.  `Congratulations, Bertie, on winning the Derby,' said the Queen.  `May I congratulate you, Your Majesty, on winning the world,' the trainer replied.  Sir Gordon Richards, whose first and last Derby victory that was, tells in the book how the Queen `showed herself a marvellous sport'.  Her Majesty's most generous contribution to racing over so many years has endeared her to her subjects and to the racing communities of the world.  This book is a fitting tribute to her part in a sport in which she has for so long been an outstanding figure.  It is magnificently illustrated in colour and in black and white.  The Queen has graciously permitted a number of paintings of her horses to be reproduced for the first time, and has lent photographs of her mares, yearlings and foals that she has herself taken.