The Burmese, the Queen’s favorite Canadian horse, protected her

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The Queen was an equestrian not only as a hobby, but as a way of life.

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Her aesthetic interests were not primarily in art, music or literature, but in nature. She found her peace in horses, dogs, in the countryside.

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Once photographed killing an injured but not killed bird, a Daily Telegraph journalist described her as a typical English farmer who did what had to be done, a “level-headed old pheasant strangler,” someone who cares for dogs and horses were a connection to the British countryside and the traditions of its people.

A monarch’s agenda is never entirely her own, but horses figured particularly heavily on her calendar, from the Royal Windsor Horse Show in late spring, through Ascot in June, then up to Scotland with the corgis in late summer to Balmoral, where she held Highland ponies. Her favorite horse was a Canadian.

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Born in Saskatchewan and educated in Ottawa, the Burmese might even have saved her life when an assassin opened fire at Trooping the Color in London in 1981. The horse definitely tried.

It’s not often that a monarch’s fate in a crisis rests with herself and her horse. Shakespeare is known to have allowed Richard III. offering his kingdom for a horse after losing his own at Bosworth Field, so the moment is rich in royal imagery. But that’s exactly what happened on the Queen’s official birthday on the second weekend in June (not to be confused with her actual birthday on April 21), as she rode down the Mall from Buckingham Palace to the annual military parade in her honor.

Marcus Sarjeant, 17, a former scout and air cadet who had attempted police and firefighting work and who later claimed to have been seeking fame, had written a threatening letter to Buckingham Palace: “Your Majesty. Do not go to the Trooping the Color ceremony because there is an assassin waiting to kill you right outside the palace.”

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However, the letter had still not arrived when Sarjeant, upon entering Horse Guards Parade, pointed a mail-order revolver at the Queen and fired six blanks.

The Burmese reacted to the danger. The shots didn’t bother her. Rather, she saw the honor guard move in quickly and close to protect the queen and face her. She mistook it as a threat to her rider.

“The Burmese felt that the household cavalry would attack me,” as the Queen later described. “So she attacked them first.”

It was an instinctive loyalty born of long intimacy, at the time more than a decade of frequent riding together through the most expensive properties in England. They protected each other.

Everyone understandably panicked when the shooter was quickly apprehended. Pope John Paul II had been shot a month earlier, and Ronald Reagan a few weeks earlier. John Lennon had been murdered on a New York street just six months earlier.

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Sarjeant later pleaded guilty to a charge under the rarely used Treason Act of intentionally firing a gun at or near the Queen with intent to “alarm or alarm” her.

To the credit of Burmese and the Queen, it’s not even entirely clear that he succeeded. The parade continued with little interruption, largely because of the special relationship of mutual care and understanding between the Queen and her favorite horse, the steadfast Canadian.

Five years later, the Burmese retreated to Windsor Castle. After 18 years with Burmese, the Queen never rode in Trooping the Color again, preferring instead to travel by carriage.

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Born on an RCMP ranch in Fort Walsh, Sask., Burmese was educated in Ottawa by RCMP Staff Sergeant Fred Rasmussen. It was given to the Queen in 1969 when Mounties made their musical ride to Britain for the Royal Windsor Horse Show and a tour of Britain.

Princess Anne took them for a short canter. Burmese was later trained by the Metropolitan Police to navigate busy London on royal holidays without being disturbed by crowds.

Riding Master Steve Cave wrote in April last year that the decision to donate “one of our chosen horses” was made because “all members of the Royal Family are passionate about horses, which has led to many countries adopting their nationally recognized horses present light horses for the royal family.”

He described a candidate horse as “sufficiently distinctive and of sufficiently high quality to hold its own in any equine society and more.”

Additional training is needed to ensure that the gift horse is “as good a representative as possible,” and he noted that research is being done into the Queen’s age and gender preferences.

As it turned out, Burmese was a mare, around seven years old at the time of the donation.

Burmese died at Windsor Castle in 1990. In 2005, the Queen unveiled Susan Velder’s statue of herself riding a Burmese in the Saskatchewan Legislature.