550 horses to help celebrate The Queen’s 90th birthday
The Queen’s 90th birthday is to be celebrated with a 90-minute spectacle featuring more than 550 horses and 1,200 participants in the shadow of Windsor Castle next year.
The plans were announced today (15 May) at the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
The celebration of the Queen’s life will take place over four nights from 12-15 May 2016. The Queen will attend the final performance, which will be shown live on ITV.
“There will be a very happy and celebratory feel to the whole event,” said the show’s director Simon Brooks-Ward.
“We have been delighted with the level of response from funders and participants. It should be a very special and memorable occasion.”
The event has already been in the planning stages for 18 months and Simon hopes to top the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Pageant – also held at the show – with “more horses and participants than last time and by using the latest technology”.
The equine, military and Commonwealth acts will celebrate all aspects of The Queen’s life, from birth through to her teenage years, the war, her marriage and her coronation.
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Actors, dancers and musicians will come from a number of countries to perform, including Oman, Chile, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and South Africa.
Among the performers will be opera singer Katherine Jenkins.
“I have always admired Her Majesty The Queen and that’s why I’m so honoured to have been asked to perform at her 90th birthday celebrations,” she said.
“After my involvement in the VE Day celebrations last weekend, I was reminded once again of our country’s patriotism and warm feeling of everyone coming together.”
The military will be well represented and will include The Queen’s mounted troops and more than 100 pipers.
Tickets to the performances will go on sale from 30 November 2015.
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A graduate from Durham University, Madeleine joined H&H in 2011 and became Features Editor — producing content across the magazine and website, including the popular inside back cover article ‘The horse that made me’ and the weekly ‘The best of my fun…’ interview. She has written on topics as diverse as hay making and headcams, to hot totty in the horse world and circus horses. Madeleine now works as a freelance feature writer for Country Life, The Telegraph, Horse & Hound, cntraveller.com, The Spectator and The Field, as well as writing obituaries for The Times.