Royal Champion The Queen Mother Special Cargo Desert Orchid
This is an enchanting film made in 1987 and featuring a very rare appearance by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother talking about her greatest love; National Hunt Racing. The early years are described by her Master Of The Horse Sir Martin Gilliat and the later times by Michael Oswald her racing manager. We see the great Special Cargo, so gallant up the Sandown hill and The Argonaught just beaten in rare footage by Desert Orchid in The Holsten Chase at Sandown in 1986. I appear very briefly in this film as a spectator in the Unsaddling Enclosure. I was at Windsor races in February 1987 and remember The Queen Mother being escorted by Terry Biddlecombe who was involved in the production of this film. She had three runners on this day including Sunrising, I remember dear old Fulke Walwyn late in his life standing precariously in thet damp tree lined paddock in what appeared to be leather bedroom slippers. Some wonderful appearances by the QM s jockeys down the years including David Mould
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