Horse girl?Johnathan Walker Try, horse princess.

Princess Anne was the only royal on horseback at the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on May 6. As the royal procession left London's Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, the 72-year-old was spotted decked out in regalia as she rode on a horse behind her brother and sister-in-law, who were seated inside the Gold State Coach. (See all the guests at the coronation here.)

So, why was Anne not in a carriage like the rest of her family? The Princess Royal was serving as Charles' "Gold-Stick-in-Waiting," a bodyguard position dating back to the Tudor period.

"Gold Stick was the original close protection officer," she explained in a recent interview with Canada's CBC News. "That is a role I was asked if I'd like to do for this coronation, so I said yes."

In addition, Anne joked that accepting the position, which would place her on horseback close to the monarch during the parade to protect him from harm, "solves my dress problem."

And Anne is very comfortable around horses. After all, she competed in a three-day equestrian event at the 1976 Olympics. 

"I thought if I was going to do anything outside of the royal family, horses was likely to be the best way of doing it," she recalled of her equestrian career to Vanity Fair in 2020. "But then you have to find the right horse at the right time. The original horse I rode was bred as a polo pony and should never have been an event horse, but it worked, so that was very satisfying."

While Anne has since retired from professional horse-riding, she's passed on her love for the animal to her daughter Zara Tindall, who is an accomplished equestrian of her own.

 

"Zara was always a natural and it was really a question of whether she felt that was something she really wanted to do, and she did and she was very thorough and applied herself to it," Anne told Vanity Fair. "She was quite rightly very successful."

To see Anne on horseback, as well as other can't-miss moments from the coronation, keep reading.

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