The British Royal Family’s Sparkling Equestrian Jewels

Racing season is officially heating up, magpies! Tomorrow is Kentucky Derby day here in the United States, and in just a few weeks we’ll see racing at Epsom and Ascot in the UK. As the royals turn their attention to their racehorses, let’s take a look at some of the equestrian-themed jewels worn by the Windsors.

Horse racing is known as the sport of kings, and for good reason. The British royal family have been deeply involved in the racing world for generations. The late Queen Elizabeth II was passionate about throroughbred racing and breeding, and she was also an accomplished rider who could be seen out on horseback well into her 90s.

In 2016, the year she celebrated her 90th birthday, Elizabeth received a special racing-themed brooch as a birthday gift from the Racing Post. The brooch was made by the British jewelry company Alabaster & Wilson Ltd. The artists at the firm used three shades of gold–white for the horse, yellow for the jockey, and pink for the bridle–and 35 diamonds in the making of the piece. Enamel was also used to decorate the rider, who was modeled on the famous Victorian jockey Fred Archer. The jockey even wears the Queen’s red and purple racing silks.

A second, similar brooch, featuring a horse in a different part of its stride, has been worn by Queen Camilla since the late Queen’s passing. Above, Camilla wears the brooch for British Champions Day at Ascot last October.

Queen Camilla also wears another brooch with unique links to the royal family’s racing history. In 1909, one of King Edward VII’s horses, Minoru, won the Epsom Derby. He commemorated the achievement by commissioning several pieces of jewelry featuring the horse’s name in diamonds, including this horseshoe-shaped brooch. Sapphires and diamonds mimic the purple and red of the royal racing colors in the jewel.

Queen Camilla isn’t the only member of the family to wear a piece of horseshoe jewelry. Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales, also has a small diamond horseshoe brooch in her jewelry box. She wore the jewel in September 2022 for the funeral of her great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. The brooch was a gift from the late Queen to Charlotte, and it may have originally belonged to the Queen Mother.

One of the most famous horsewomen of the current generation of Windsors is the Princess Royal, who was a championship equestrian eventer in the 1970s. She is still very involved with the world of equestrian sport today, and she can often be spotted wearing this gleaming gold and diamond horse brooch at the races throughout the year.

Anne’s niece, Lady Louise Windsor, is also involved in the world of equestrian sport, having learned the sport of carriage driving from her grandfather, Prince Philip. For his memorial service at Westminster Abbey in March 2022, she wore a brooch featuring a horse’s head, a horseshoe, and a driving whip in its design.

And, of course, we can’t mention horses and the Windsors without discussing Zara Tindall. Princess Anne’s daughter is an extremely accomplished horsewoman who won a silver medal as part of the British eventing team at the 2012 London Olympics. In 2015, Zara launched a line of equestrian-inspired jewelry with the Australian jewelry designer John Calleija. In the promo shot above, she wears pieces from the Saddle Suite, including a ring that mimics the rise and fall of a saddle.