REVEALED: The Queen’s ONLY extravagance costs more than half a million a year
THE Queen only spends her money on one luxury item but it costs more than half a million a year, according to reports.
Queen: Monarch’s one extravagance is horses claims expert
Queen Elizabeth II is well-known for being frugal but she does enjoy spending money on her favourite animals - horses. The Monarch visited the double world champion dressage horse Valegro after meeting her great-grandchild Archie Harrison on Wednesday. The avid equestrian continues to ride and attended the Royal Windsor Horse Show this week.
But her extravagance has been labelled a “drain on the private purse” by royal finance expert David McClure.
Mr McClure told Yahoo’s Royal Box: “The Queen is famously frugal but her one extravagance is horses.
“She’s a great lover of the turf.
“Now this is quite an expensive hobby, at one stage she had about a string of about 20 thoroughbred horses, she had three studs, she had stables.
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“It was estimated, that I think in around about 2000, it was costing about £600,000 a year just to run that.
“I’m sure the stud probably breaks even but the normal sort of horse racing venture doesn’t so it probably is a drain on the private purse.”
The Queen usually enters several of her own horses in the events at the Horse show.
She has attended every year since it began as a Second World War fundraising event in 1943.
The annual show, held over five days in Home Park, part of the 950-year-old royal residence's grounds, is now in its 76th year.
The Queen’s love of horses sparked when she was just a child.
On her fourth birthday, the then princess was given by King George V as a present a Shetland mare named Peggy, which fuelled her love for these animals.
The 92-year-old Queen has become throughout the years the patron of many organisations focused on horses, including the British Horse Society, the Fell Pony Society and the Highland Pony Society.