did queen elizabeth visit kentucky

Tracing Queen Elizabeth’s steps through the U.S.

By Danielle Paquette | Sep 10, 2022

During her seven-decade reign, Queen Elizabeth II visited more than two dozen cities across the United States. She chatted with Girl Scouts, football players, presidents and Frank Sinatra . She cheered on race horses in Kentucky. She requested a ham sandwich with the crust removed in Texas. She sported a tweed skirt-suit in Yosemite National Park.

Wherever England’s longest-serving monarch went, photographers followed, capturing generations of Americans in the throes of Royal fever (and more than a few signature handbags ).

Oct. 17, 1957 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II heads to the White House as crowd's line Washington streets to see the royal monarch.

Oct. 18, 1957 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II accepts a doll for Princess Anne from 7-year-old Pamela Springmann during a visit at Children's Hospital.

Queen Elizabeth II and Vice President Richard Nixon tilt their heads for a better view of the oil paintings on the interior of the Capitol dome during a tour.

Oct. 19, 1957 | College Park, Md.

Co-captains of North Carolina and Maryland meet Queen Elizabeth II before the start of a game.

Oct. 21, 1957 | New York

Queen Elizabeth II, wearing a mink stole, and Prince Philip, standing next to a viewing telescope, view New York City from the observatory roof of the Empire State Building. The Queen said, "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Queen Elizabeth II, in a plastic domed car, rides up lower Broadway through a shower of ticker tape and confetti during procession to City Hall.

Queen Elizabeth II addresses the United Nations General Assembly.

Her Majesty kicked off a seven-city tour of the nation’s east in 1976 with a stop in Philadelphia, where she unveiled a gift for the City of Brotherly Love: a Bicentennial Bell to celebrate 200 years of American independence from English rule. (The bell remains in storage .)

July 7, 1976 | Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip walk down the ramp of their aircraft near Washington.

July 7, 1976 | Philadelphia

Queen Elizabeth II is greeted by the Girl Scouts of America.

July 8, 1976 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II arrives at the U.S. Capitol.

On her New York leg, Elizabeth was spotted squeezing through city throngs, underscoring the lighter security protocols of yesteryear.

July 10, 1976 | New York

Thousands surround Queen Elizabeth II as she walks from the Federal Building up Wall Street to Trinity Church with Mayor Abraham Beame.

J Walter Green

July 10, 1976 | Charlottesville, Va.

Queen Elizabeth II tours Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home.

July 11, 1976 | Boston

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip wave to spectators below from the balcony of the Old State House before the Queen descended to street level to address the crowd. The location is the site of the Boston massacre, an event which led to the Revolutionary War.

Elizabeth returned in 1983 for a trek through the West Coast. She visited a Southern California retirement home, led a champagne toast with then-president Ronald Reagan and absorbed the mountain views at Yosemite National Park.

Feb. 26, 1983 | San Diego

Queen Elizabeth II reviews the U.S. Marine Corps honor guard as she arrives for a State visit.

Feb. 28, 1983 | Sierra Madre

Queen Elizabeth II shares a smile with 97-year-old Sibyl Jones-Bateman after the monarch was presented with a bouquet during tour of the British Home retirement community near Los Angeles.

March 3, 1983 | San Francisco

President Ronald Reagan and Queen Elizabeth II raise their glasses in a toast during a state dinner at the M. H. de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Ed Reinke/AP

March 5, 1983 | Yosemite, Calif.

Park superintendent Bob Binnewies points out highlights from Inspiration Point to Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Yosemite National Park.

The queen, a horse racing enthusiast, landed in Kentucky five times between 1984 and 2007, according to the Courier-Journal . She was known to turn up at horse farms, admiring the mares and foals.

May 23, 1986 | Versailles, Ky.

Queen Elizabeth II puts out her hand to her filly foal by the mare Christchurch and Alydar during a visit to Lane's End Farm.

May 27, 1986 | Lexington, Ky.

Queen Elizabeth II exchanges pleasantries with a line of Fayette County (Ky.) and Kentucky State Troopers on the tarmac as prepares to depart following a five-day visit.

Amy Sancetta/Associated Press

May 26, 1989 | Lexington, Ky.

Queen Elizabeth II is welcomed by a child upon her arrival during a private visit to the U.S.

David Banks

During her 1991 visit, Elizabeth addressed Congress. Lawmakers gave the monarch a standing ovation, while opponents of British occupation in Northern Ireland protested outside the Capitol.

May 14, 1991 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II and President George H.W. Bush review the troops after the Queen's arrival at the White House.

May 15, 1991 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II holds flowers presented to her at Drake Place, a housing project.

May 16, 1991 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II is applauded by Vice President Dan Quayle and House Speaker Thomas Foley before her address to the U.S. Congress.

Doug Mills/AP

Elizabeth’s last U.S. state visit came in 2007, when she arrived for the 400th anniversary of England establishing its first permanent North American settlement in Jamestown, Va.

She dined with then-president George W. Bush, watched the Kentucky Derby through bulletproof glass and checked out Washington memorials.

May 4, 2007 | Lexington, Ky.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip look out of the window of an SUV as they leave the Bluegrass Airport after arriving.

Morry Gash/AP

May 5, 2007 | Louisville, Ky.

Queen Elizabeth II chats with Prince Philip as Susan Lucci (black hat) looks on at the 133rd Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

Rob Carr/AP

May 7, 2007, | Washington

President Bush smiles at Queen Elizabeth II before the start of a State Dinner at the White House.

Evan Vucci/AP

May 8, 2007 | Washington

Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. Park Service Director Mary Bomar walk around the National World War II Memorial during a visit by the Queen and Duke.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

May 8, 2007 | Greenbelt, Md.

Queen Elizabeth II accepts flowers from children while walking during a visit to the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Larry Downing

Elizabeth made her final stop on American soil in 2010 to address the United Nations General Assembly. “I believe I was last here in 1957,” she deadpanned to her New York audience.

July 6, 2010 | New York

Queen Elizabeth II leaves a wreath of flowers at the site of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack during her visit.

Lucas Jackson

Queen Elizabeth II speaks at the United Nations Headquarters.

Seth Wenig/AP

More from the Post

Photos: The life of Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch

The queen’s travels, in photos

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Photo editing and production by Natalia Jiménez

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Queen Elizabeth Visited Kentucky on Five Separate Occasions

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It's odd when someone whose name you've heard your entire life passes away. Of course, the "someone" in question is Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday at the age of 96.

While I feel certain the royal family would consider it crass to call her a global celebrity, that is exactly what she was...and one of the biggest and most easily recognizable. She reigned for 70 years, eclipsing her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria by just shy of seven years as the longest-reigning British monarch.

As a child, I thought she was a homebody. I thought all monarchs were. I just figured they sat on their thrones and then went to bed at night. That's a kid for you. Obviously as I got older I realized there are many reasons for British monarchs to travel, and Queen Elizabeth was no exception.

And she loved coming to Kentucky. I can only assume that since she visited the Commonwealth on five occasions.

QUEEN ELIZABETH IN KENTUCKY -- 1984

During her first visit, in 1984 , Queen Elizabeth toured a number of Kentucky horse farms and attended the first running of the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland in Lexington where she presented a trophy to the owner of Sintra, the winning horse.

QUEEN ELIZABETH IN KENTUCKY -- 1986

In 1986, the queen paid what Associated Press reporter Mike Embry called a "low-key" visit to Kentucky. She would stay with close friends William S. Farish III and his wife Sarah at Lane's End Farm where she was keeping horses. She loved horses and she loved Kentucky. Here's how her visit began 36 years ago:

QUEEN ELIZABETH IN KENTUCKY -- 1989

You heard then-Governor Martha Layne Collins predict that Queen Elizabeth would return, and she was right. In 1989, the queen came back to Kentucky for what was dubbed a working holiday. As United Press International's Brian Malloy put it , she was "touring horse farms for potential bloodstock for her royal breeding operations."

QUEEN ELIZABETH IN KENTUCKY -- 1991

It would only be a couple of years before the queen returned to Kentucky in 1991, and this time, her stay in the Commonwealth was the finale of her tour of the U.S.  It was also a private visit, with very little opportunities for the public to see her that year.

After touring horse farms, Queen Elizabeth was once again a guest of her friends, the Farishes, before flying back to England.

QUEEN ELIZABETH IN KENTUCKY -- 2007

However, DESPITE her close friendship with the Farishes and her love of Kentucky, the queen waited another 16 years before returning. It would be her fifth and final visit to the Commonwealth. And though she DID love it here and was quite the equine aficionado, in 2007, she made her ONLY appearance at the Kentucky Derby.

With Queen Elizabeth's passing, all eyes turn toward Prince Charles who will now be known as King Charles III. But an official ceremony isn't likely to take place until sometime in 2023.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Life in Photos

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GALLERY: Look back at Queen's Elizabeth II visits to Kentucky

With the news of Queen Elizabeth II's death, here is a look back on some of her visits to Kentucky.

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Hermitage Farm reflects on Queen Elizabeth II visit in 1986

GOSHEN, Ky. — The 10 days of national mourning are ending as the Queen Elizabeth II funeral, now declared a public holiday across the United Kingdom, will take place at Westminster Abbey on Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. 

What You Need To Know

Queen elizabeth ii's funeral is scheduled for monday, september 19 the queen visited hermitage farm in goshen, ky. queen elizabeth ii visited kentucky five times before her passing at 96.

As they lay the queen to rest, many throughout the world continue to pay tribute to her memory, including one Kentucky farm she visited in 1986.

Hermitage Farm , the world class equine operation in Oldham County, has produced a lasting legacy.

“Hermitage Farm is very unique in that we are outside of the traditional bluegrass which is around the Lexington area,” Bill Landes, general manager of Hermitage Farm, said.

It’s safe to say the farm has had a fair amount of success.

“We’ve bred a Kentucky Derby winner, we’ve bred a Kentucky Oaks winner, we’ve bred a Breeder’s Cup winner, we’ve bred two champions in America, we have stood the leading stallion in America,” Landes said.

It’s that kind of success that even attracted Queen Elizabeth II. The queen visited Goshen in 1986 where Landes and the entire Hermitage Farm crew hosted a yearling show in her honor.

“I’ll never forget her bending down and picking up a horse’s hoof with Mr. Jones to see how this horse was shod and exactly what we were doing and that spoke to me at that time,” Landes said.

Her fascination with horses led the queen to Kentucky five times before her passing at 96.

On her trips to the bluegrass, Queen Elizabeth also visited Churchill Downs and Keeneland.

“Well, it was just our honor to do that because, other than Churchill Downs,  Hermitage Farm  was the only other Louisville area visit that she made, so that’s quite an honor,” Landes said.

That visit that will last a lifetime for Landes. Landes had the honor of shaking Queen Elizabeth’s hand during her time at the farm.

“It was never promised, I was told,” Landes. “If she desires to do it, she will reach out and extend her hand to you, which she did, and that was quite a thrill.”

Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest beside her husband, Philip, at King George VI Memorial Chapel. 

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A Visit to Central Kentucky in ‘The Crown’: Fiction Meets Reality

In the fifth episode of season three of Netflix’s “The Crown,” Queen Elizabeth II travels to Kentucky and spends a month in the commonwealth looking for horses to breed with her mares, some of whom were stabled in Central Kentucky. In the episode, she spends her time in Kentucky lamenting “the unlived life” and the restrictions that accompany her station as a monarch.

Fans of “The Crown” love to parse through the show’s events and storylines to mine what is based on fact and what is based on fiction. This episode provided much fodder for those students of “The Crown’s” allegiance to history.

At this point in the show’s third season, it is supposed to be 1967. But Queen Elizabeth II didn’t set foot on Kentucky soil until 1984. And though she did spend time looking at stallions during that six-day trip, her real reason for the visit was to attend the inaugural running of the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland Race Course .

Queen Elizabeth II had been to the United States six times prior to that visit in October 1984, but this was her first visit to Kentucky and her first to an American racetrack despite the fact that she was a lifelong fan of horse racing. She visited nearly a dozen horse farms during the visit and many of the farms reportedly offered to mate their star stallions with her mares free of charge.

The queen then attended a party at Lane’s End as a guest of William S. Farish III and Sarah Farish, and about 120 invited guests mostly from the Kentucky horse racing community. Will Farish had met the queen in 1974 through her son Prince Charles while playing polo in England, and they had remained friends, connected through their shared love of horses and racing. Sarah Farish, a du Pont heiress, said that “it was the most wonderful week either of us had ever had ... it was almost beyond words.”

In “The Crown,” the queen’s visit to Kentucky is cut short by word of a coup attempt back home, a story that does have some root in actual fact. While no actual coup attempt was in fact ever made, there were discussions of a coup among a group of wealthy industrialists, military generals, and Lord Mountbatten in 1968 about the possibility of pushing out the elected Labour government. Nothing much came of those talks, and certainly nothing rose to the level seen in “The Crown.”

However, during Queen Elizabeth II’s actual trip to America in 1984, her visit was cut short by an act of political terrorism back home. An IRA bomb in a Harrod’s department store in London killed nine people on her last day in the United States, sending her home to face a tragedy and political crisis. At the time of the bombing, she was no longer in Kentucky but had flown to Canyon Ranch in Montana to stay with her racing manager, Lord Porchester, whose wife was an American.

In addition to being the queen’s racing manager, Lord Porchester had been her friend since childhood. The two of them bonded over a shared love of horses, and Porchester served in the Royal Horse Guards during World War II.

From childhood until his death in 2001, the queen and Lord Porchester shared a uniquely close relationship. Some said he was the only person who could contact her at any time. Naturally, there were rumors about the nature of their relationship, and “The Crown” certainly stokes those fires in this episode. There is a strong insinuation that one of the reasons for the queen’s trip to Kentucky to check in on her horses is to spend time with Lord Porchester, with whom her husband suspects she is having an affair. This insinuation has enraged defenders of the royal family, who say there is no basis for it. And, they’re right — like a lot of “The Crown,” this episode and incident are a work of fiction. But it isn’t a totally imagined narrative. The writers took their inspiration from actual events and the rumors that surrounded them in order to come up with this particular fiction.

“The Crown” shows Queen Elizabeth II feeling conflicted about returning to England after her stay in Kentucky. After a day of riding horses alongside of Lord Porchester she tells him over dinner that “today has managed to be one of the most enjoyable days of my life, and at the same time one of the most depressing.” She then confesses to him, “this is how I’d like to spend all of my time. Owning horses, breeding horses, racing horses, that’s what makes me truly happy. And I actually think it was what I was born to do … until the other thing came along.”

Queen Elizabeth II continues to breed and race horses to this day. A sizeable chunk of her net worth has come from horse racing: she has earned nearly $10 million in the sport over the last 30 years. Her involvement in horse racing is well known and documented among American racing fans. In 2018, she sent one of her horses, Call to Mind , to Belmont Park where he won the Grade 2 Belmont Gold Cup Invitational Stakes . Queen Elizabeth II’s Magnetic Charm competed in October in the 2019 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes Presented by Lane's End at Keeneland.

The queen has returned to Kentucky four times since that first trip in 1984. While much of “The Crown” is fiction, the notion that Queen Elizabeth II was truly happy racing horses seems to be undisputably true.

2019 Visit Horse Country: Lane's End, Part 1 from America's Best Racing on Vimeo .

2019 Visit Horse Country: Lane's End, Part 2 from America's Best Racing on Vimeo .

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Queen Elizabeth's love of horses often brought her to Kentucky

Late british monarch visited us state five times between 1984 and 2007.

13 September, 2022

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IMAGES: Queen Elizabeth II at the Kentucky Derby during her 2007 U.S. visit

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QUEEN ELIZABETH VISITING KENTUCKY HORSE FARMS

• Oct. 8, 1984

Queen Elizabeth II, a top breeder of thoroughbred horses in Britain, began a private six-day visit today to some of America's noted stud farms.

The Queen was greeted in the rain at Blue Grass Airport by Gov. Martha Layne Collins, Mayor Scotty Baesler and Sarah and William S. Farish 3d, at whose farm the Queen is staying.

About 200 people lined a nearby fence to get a glimpse of the Queen's arrival at 4:40 P.M. Prince Philip, who had been with his wife on a tour of Canada, was bound for the Middle East.

Carrying her own umbrella, the Queen shook hands and exchanged greetings with the 10 people in the receiving line. 'Delighted' to Visit

''She said she was delighted to be here and she was aware that we needed this rain for our crops,'' said Mrs. Collins, who presented her with a leatherbound book about Kentucky. ''It didn't dampen her spirits at all. She was very gracious. She mentioned that she had been in the States before, and it had rained every day she was here.''

Mr. Baesler said the idea of greeting British royalty was always impressive. ''There's certainly an aura about it that's hard to describe,'' he said. ''You see a lot of your own history right there. A lot of U.S. history is tied up with her history.''

Despite the private nature of the visit, security arrangements are tight, the authorities say. Secret Service agents have been in the area for weeks and warn that reporters and sightseers will be arrested if they venture onto properties where the Queen is visiting or try to fly overhead. 'A Pretty Big Job'

''From what I've seen, it's every bit as big as what we do for the Vice President or the President or somebody like that,'' Capt. Larry Walsh of the Lexington police said. ''It's a pretty big job.''

The Queen, a leading owner of thoroughbreds and expert on blood lines, plans to spend her time touring leading Bluegrass horse farms. On Thursday she is to present a trophy to the winners of a race named for her.

The Queen, who is bringing only a small staff, will stay in a 19th-century country mansion at Lane's End Farm outside Versailles. A spokesman indicated that the Queen would go out only by day and attend none of the lavish parties common among Lexington horse farmers.

Nonetheless, her private visit touched off a flurry of weeding, planting, raking, sweeping and building. Even the airport runways were cleaned, and officials did their best to cover up the rubble from an expansion project still under way.

''We've been working with the embassy for six months,'' said James Brough, director of the airport. ''We've got everything worked out, and hopefully everything will go like clockwork. We just want to put our best foot forward, like everybody else.''

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Why Queen Elizabeth was so very fond of America

She was just 25 and still a princess when she and prince philip made their first visit to united states in 1951, writes andrew buncombe.

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S he met every sitting US president but one. She stayed with another president, Harry Truman , before she was even the monarch, and met one more, Herbert Hoover, 20 years after he had left office.

Queen Elizabeth II –  whose funeral service has been held after she died earlier this month aged 96 after 70 years on the throne – made six official trips to the US, including three state visits with all the pomp and ceremony that involved. She also made a number of private visits, many of them in pursuit of her love of horse racing and the thoroughbreds of Kentucky.

She was just 25 and still a princess when she, and Prince Philip, made her first visit to the United States in 1951, staying with President Truman at Blair House while renovations to the White House were being carried out.

In 1957, she and Philip returned for her first state visit and were met at the White House by President Dwight Eisenhower and his wife Mamie.

He was the first serving president she met during her reign, which began in 1952.

In 2021, the Queen met Joe Biden – whom she had previously spoken to when he was a senator – bringing to 13 the total of presidents in office she met. The only sitting president she did not speak to face to face was Lyndon Johnson.

In one obvious sense, the number of American presidents she met is a striking reminder of the length of her reign. (When Eisenhower was in office, his political counterpart in London was Winston Churchill.)

Latest updates as Queen Elizabeth dies peacefully in Scotland

Supporters and admirers of the Queen say the connections she was able to make helped add personal cement to the relationship between the two countries, almost 250 years after what was a British colony fought for and secured its independence from King George III.

And diplomats from both the US and Britain say London was able to use the Queen’s soft power, and the prospect of a photo opportunity at Buckingham Palace, knowing the allure it held to some, even if they got to meet other heads of state all around the world. (In 2018, the Queen hosted Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, even as anti-Trump protesters demonstrated in central London and inflated a balloon that showed the US president wearing a nappy – or diaper).

Elizabeth was just 13 when the Second World War broke out, and she came of age – later serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British army – at a time when the US’s importance to Britain, and to its very survival, could not have been more stark.

Historian Robert Hardman, author of a number of books about the monarch including Queen of the World , says her growing up at a time of conflict – she served in the Women’s Land Army – resulted in her seeing the United States as a saviour of sorts for Britain and Europe.

That in turn has helped to shape the way many Americans, particularly admirers of the monarch, view her.

“It was quite well summed up years ago by a Washington journalist based in London: he just said that the Queen, to so many Americans, symbolised stability and permanence in a changing world – characteristics that people find very endearing,” he tells The Independent . “The shared bond of sacrifice, the war, the Second World War in particular, is seen as a big deal in public life.”

He adds: “Generations move on, but the royal family is very much identified with that sort of great transatlantic alliance that – it’s not an exaggeration to say – saved the free world.”

A royal diplomatic carrot

Diplomats from the US and Britain have said the Queen was used frequently to the benefit of both sides, even if any record of the visits of Her Majesty to the US, or a US president to Britain, tend to contain any manner of incidents of “protocol breaches”, as noted by royal watchers.

These included Trump’s walking in front of the Queen, instead of alongside her, and turning his back on her as they reviewed an honour guard, and Michelle Obama’s brief placing of an arm around the Queen’s back as they commiserated with each other about their aching feet.

In 2007, during the Queen’s last visit to the US, George W Bush momentarily mixed up a date of an earlier trip – a 1976 state dinner to mark the bicentennial of the American Revolution – saying she had been there in “17….”. He caught himself before he went any further, and added: “She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child.”

The 1976 visit was also not without note. Gerald Ford threw a dinner at the White House and invited the likes of Cary Grant. Reports suggest all went well until Ford led the Queen to the dance floor, perhaps not aware that the song sounding out through the room was “The Lady Is a Tramp”.

“I think it’s useful on both sides,” says Raymond Seitz, a career diplomat who served as US ambassador to London from 1991 to 1994, the last non-political appointee dispatched by Washington to the Court of St James’s.

“For the British, I think it is useful to see that there is a commonality of interests and history that has more or less worked to the benefit of both countries. Of course, the Queen will do her duty no matter what she thinks of the US president.

“And on the American side, because we tend to be a little rambunctious in our politics, and some of our decision-making, having affirmation from the British, not to mention participation from the British, is always valuable for an American president. So it’s not America going alone.”

Seitz says the US is overwhelmingly a celebrity culture. And because the Queen has been seen in that pigeonhole, few have understood her specific role or the purpose of the Commonwealth.

“There’s this extremely glamorous aspect to the monarchy. And so Americans want to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace,” he says. “And you don’t have to be a descendant of Anglos to like it, you know, Italian Americans go and Black Americans go and it’s just something to see.”

Seitz travelled with the Queen to Texas and Florida in 1991, when George HW Bush was president, and the monarch embarked on a 13-day tour that would include an address to Congress and a visit to the baseball match between the Baltimore Orioles and the Oakland Athletics. (A preview in The New York Times noted that the Queen “will be offered a hot dog but that she does not eat in public”.)

At the White House, she joked about being part of the bicentennial celebrations 15 years earlier.

“With gallant disregard for history, we shared wholeheartedly in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the founding of this great nation,” she said.

She told the joint session of Congress: “The concept, so simply described by Abraham Lincoln as ‘government by the people, of the people, for the people’, is fundamental to our two nations. Your Congress and our parliament are the twin pillars of our civilisations and the chief among the many treasures that we have inherited from our predecessors.”

Seitz says the royal visitors drew warm crowds, even if not everyone was certain of who precisely they were.

“In Austin, Texas, the crowds were out, and they were waving little union jacks, and not quite sure who she was, but that she was pretty terrific,” he says. “And I think most people have just a very favourable image of her. And of course, the older she is, the longer she’s there, she’s like everybody’s grandmother.”

Seitz says he spoke to the Queen several times, always at social events.

“She has a very good sense of humour. And she’s very easy to talk to and interested in things and follows up after a conversation,” he adds.

“And she has a charming laugh. She says, when something’s funny, she really enjoys the humour of it. My encounters were always very pleasant. But I never had to talk hard business.”

‘Free men everywhere look towards the United States with affection and with hope’

Elizabeth’s first visit to the US was in October 1951, when the 25-year-old was not yet Queen. She and Philip spent two days in Washington DC, hosted by President Truman and his wife Bess. They had travelled to DC from Canada, where she was also making her first trip.

Her father, George VI, was very ill from lung cancer at this point, and he would die just months later, on 6 February 1952, his death at Sandringham Estate setting in motion Elizabeth’s ascent to the throne, and her subsequent coronation in June 1953.

Reports noted Elizabeth gave Truman an elaborate 18th-century “overmantle” to hang above a fireplace in the White House.

Meeting the royal couple at Washington national airport, Truman said: “I think your visit will improve – if that is possible – the cordial relations that exist between our two great countries, and I hope that while you are here you will have a very enjoyable time.”

In response, Elizabeth said during her time in Canada, she heard “much of the warm goodwill felt by the people of the United States towards the people of Canada, and I am glad that before sailing for England we are to have this chance of seeing at least some of the country with which the whole British Commonwealth has so many friendly ties”.

She added: “Free men everywhere look towards the United States with affection and with hope. The message that has gone out from this great capital city has brought hope and courage to a troubled world.”

Later, Truman said that, while he had received many guests in Washington, “never before have we had such a wonderful young couple, who have so completely captured the hearts of all of us”.

A new age of discovery – plus a game of college football

Five years after that first visit to the US, the Queen and Prince Phillip returned for her first state visit, the 31-year-old monarch being met at the White House by President Eisenhower and his wife Mamie. Eisenhower was the first serving president she met during her reign.

In addition to events in Washington DC and New York, the Queen attended the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown in 1607, the first permanent English settlement in North America. (It was also the site of the first landing of slaves, in 1619, the commencement of more than two centuries of slavery that would continue until the end of the American civil war in 1865.)

The Queen received a 21-gun salute and was welcomed at Jamestown by Virginia governor Thomas Stanley.

According to a report in the Richmond Times Dispatch , Elizabeth said in her remarks: “I cannot think of a more appropriate point for us to start our visit to the United States.”

She added: “The settlement in Jamestown was the beginning of a series of overseas settlements made throughout the world by British pioneers. Jamestown grew and became the United States. Those other settlements grew and became nations now united in our great Commonwealth.”

The Queen visited an exhibit of the settlement and had tea at the College of William and Mary, and attended a religious service in the Old Tower Church on Jamestown island. She and Philip would spend two nights at the Williamsburg Inn.

To bring the Queen to Washington, Eisenhower had sent his official aircraft, the Columbine III , to Patrick Henry airport in Newport News.

At a state dinner at the White House, the Queen said; “There are many indications today that we are at the beginning of a new age of discovery and exploration in the world of human knowledge and technology. Only a short time ago these unexplored areas of human knowledge seemed as impenetrable as the forests of this continent to the settlers 350 years ago.”

Her visit also took in a college football match, watching the Maryland Terrapins beat the North Carolina Tar Heels 21-7, at the University of Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington DC.

The Queen left for New York, where she addressed a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

She said: “This assembly was born of the endeavours of countless men and women from different nations who, over the centuries, have pursued the aims of the preservation of peace between nations, equality of justice for all before the law and the right of the peoples of the world to live their lives in freedom and security.”

She would not return to the US on an official basis until 1976 when she travelled to see Gerald Ford for the bicentennial celebration, an event that was also a state visit. She made official trips, though not state visits, in 1983 when she visited President Ronald Reagan, 1991 when she met President George HW Bush, and 2007 when she returned for the 400th anniversary of the English settlement in Jamestown

‘The only absolutely central item in president’s visit is this riding event’

Perhaps the most telling insight of the Queen’s power as a diplomatic tool with the wrapping of pageantry came during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who served two terms, and visited London in June 1982 while the Falklands conflict was still going on.

The British government, led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was concerned to ensure the US’s support in a critical UN vote over the Falklands. The visit by Reagan was the first by a president for five years, but the invitation from the Queen – rather than the government – was the first of its kind since one made to Woodrow Wilson in 1919.

Reagan also had to juggle a one-day trip to the Vatican to visit the Pope, an economic summit in Paris, and the fallout from the British media again finding fault with a breach of protocol. (First lady Nancy shook hands and did not curtsy, triggering a series of hard stories.)

Reagan was also the first US president to address the Houses of Parliament.

Yet, documents obtained by the historian Hardman under a freedom of information request show the importance Reagan attached to an invitation from the Queen to ride with her at Windsor.

“Mrs Thatcher had worked very hard to bring Ronald Reagan onside in the conflict, despite the reluctance of some American strategists for whom Argentina served as a bulwark against the spread of communism in South America,” Hardman writes in Queen of Our Times .

Documents show Sir Nico Henderson, the British ambassador to Washington, reporting to London: “I need hardly say that the only absolutely stable and central item in any discussion of the president’s visit is this riding event.”

The ride, which lasted an hour around the Windsor estate, went off without a hitch, despite being “pursued by US Secret Service outriders in a state of near panic”.

Reagan wrote in his diaries that day: “Flew out for London and helicoptered to Windsor Castle. This was a fairy tale experience.”

A year later, Reagan returned the compliment, inviting the Queen to ride with him at his ranch in California, an offer he did not make to any other head of state.

Hardman says reading the documents it becomes clear that this was the “personal magic, which really matters to the most powerful man in the world at the time when Britain really needs his help”.

‘She’s enjoyed discussing horse breeding and meeting the people who run these farms’

In addition to the six official visits to the US, the Queen made several private visits and in particular was drawn to the bluegrass state of Kentucky. There she pursued her fondness for horse racing.

Her first visit came in October 1984, to celebrate the inauguration of a race named in her honour, the Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes, held at Keeneland, Lexington. The first race’s winner was Sintra, a Kentucky-bred horse. 

Seth Hancock, one of the half-owners of the horse, told a reporter from the Lexington Courier-Journal : “The queen’s a regular person, just like my mother and all the other classy ladies I’ve known in my life.”

The other half-owner, Renee Lickle, confessed to being more starstruck. “My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t even hold my binoculars straight.”

She returned in 1986 and 1989, for what officials said was a “working holiday” with few if any public appearances.

The Queen is said to have stayed at Lane’s End, a farm in Versailles, west of Lexington, owned by her friend William Farish and where she stabled horses. Farish met Prince Charles while playing polo and was introduced to the Queen at a match she sponsored in England. Farish would later serve as US ambassador to London.

British embassy spokesman Francis Cornish told reporters at the time that the Queen was returning to Kentucky because there was no match for its status as a centre of horse breeding, and she had “thoroughly enjoyed herself” during her previous two visits.

“She’s enjoyed seeing the stallions,” Cornish said. “She’s enjoyed discussing horse breeding and she’s very much enjoyed meeting the people who run these farms and own these farms.”

The Queen returned twice more to Kentucky, in 1991, as the “unofficial” part of her official visit, and in May 2007 when she and Philip attended the 133rd Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

Former Buckingham Palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter told the WLKY television channel that year: “There are those ... who would probably say that she likes animals a little more than she likes people. And I suppose it can be argued that the animals are always pleased to see you and they don’t argue back.”

‘For many Americans it’s amazing she was Queen when Winston Churchill was prime minister’

The Queen’s last official visit to the United States was in May 2007 when she travelled to mark the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement, near Williamsburg, Virginia.

She was welcomed at the White House by George W Bush, and at the British embassy in Washington DC by the ambassador Sir David Manning. In his role as Britain’s envoy, Sir David accompanied the Queen’s party.

He believes the Queen’s admiration for the US was largely mutual.

“The affection for her was very clear when she came to the United States on her last state visit in 2007,” he says from London.

“And the one in 2007, in some ways, reprised the very first one because she arrived in Jamestown, and then went to Williamsburg. And when she stayed in Williamsburg, she stayed in a hotel that had wonderful photographs of her from the very first time in 1957.”

Sir David points out that the Queen met every US president who served during her reign bar Lyndon Johnson.

“And it was a source of fascination and amazement to many Americans that this was somebody who first came to the throne when Winston Churchill was the British prime minister,” he says. “And Churchill, as we all know very well, is a cult figure in the United States.”

He adds that for many Americans there was a sense of history about her, a link that goes right back to those days of Eisenhower and Churchill. “She, I think, is also enormously admired as being someone who lived through the Second World War.”

Sir David says during their time in Washington DC, the Queen and Prince Philip visited the then recently new World War II Memorial. They toured it, not with Bush but Bush’s father, George HW Bush, and former first lady Barbara Bush.

“This was a very moving event because all of them had lived through the war. There was Prince Philip, who had been on destroyers, and the Queen had been in the [Women’s] Land Army, and President Bush had been a fighter pilot,” he says.

“And I think this all has great resonance for Americans. And so I think there is a fascination and attachment.”

Sir David also spent 10 years as an adviser to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Kate), and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry and Meghan).

In March 2021, Meghan and Harry delivered a withering account of the palace in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, accusing it of racism and officials of ignoring the couple’s appeal for help with their mental wellbeing.

Does Sir David believe events like that, or allegations made against her second son Prince Andrew in lawsuits filed in New York of sexual assault – claims he denied but which the Queen helped him to financially settle – tarnished her reputation?

He says that now he is living outside the US, it is impossible for him to say. However, he doubts it.

“Maybe other members of the family come up and come down, and they’re less or more popular, but I think the Queen is in a rather special category of her own, probably,” he says.

“I doubt whether the assessment of her is much affected by what the rest of the family do.”

He says that the controversy over Meghan and Harry is, of course, part of her reign, but doubts “it will much impact on how she was viewed from the United States”.

He says that she was “championing the Commonwealth, she’s champion decolonisation, she’s obviously absolutely happy in the company of all sorts of leaders from all around the world, and what’s more, she knows them all very well, I think that is much more the image Americans are likely to take away”.

Final visit and a ‘vision in champagne’

During the six-day state visit in 2007, the staff at the Williamsburg Inn had set out photographs of the Queen, from her first visit 40 years earlier. The Inn has a long history of welcoming heads of state and government, and VIPs, among them the late Margaret Thatcher, who in 1993 was made chancellor of the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg.

Leslie Noble, the general manager, recalls her visit as one that was very warm and says that for many staff, the Queen’s visit would have been special, particularly given she was coming to celebrate 400 years since the founding of Jamestown.

Noble was supposed to have been in the farewell line that sent her off but because of a mix-up, she and her staff were sent out to wave at her departing helicopter.

“I was so impressed by her composure with this crowd in the lobby. How kind she was to the two little girls that gave the flowers,” she says, speaking from Williamsburg.

“She was only here less than 24 hours. But I watched her go up and down the staircase to her suite numerous times. Travelling up the steps like it was nothing, and these high-heeled shoes, and just the energy she had, even in her eighties.

“And I thought how remarkable she was, always seemed so composed and so friendly, smiling to people, even as she was heading back to her room to change for the next event that she had,” she adds.

Noble recalls that ahead of her visit, the Inn had been contacted by the Queen’s senior dresser, Angela Kelly, whose formal title is personal adviser to Her Majesty (The Queen’s Wardrobe).

She says Kelly told her the Queen had described her 1957 visit in such detail that she felt she had visited the Inn herself, even though at that point she had not.

The monarch had even remembered the gown she wore, though not its colour, as she had that item in two particular tones – blue and beige. Most photographs from the time were black and white.

Nat Reed, the Inn’s former superintendent of guest services, had worked during the Queen’s first visit, and retired in 1984.

During the time of the Queen’s second visit, Reed was in his nineties, but his memory was also sharp. (Reed died in 2009, aged 93, and his story in the Richmond Times was headlined “Nathaniel Reid, who served royalty at Williamsburg Inn, dies at 93”.)

“When asked about the colour of the gown – and they didn’t give him a choice – he just immediately said ‘she was a vision in champagne’,” says Noble.

“So she did remember her time with us and remembers that enough that she described it 50 years later in such detail, even the gown.”

Noble adds: “The fact that she remembered meant so much to us. To think with everything that she had seen and done in 50 years, she had enough of a memory of us.”

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The Kentucky Derby is always star-studded.

But it became a royal affair in 2007 when Louisville was graced with the presence of a queen.

Queen Elizabeth II -- yes, her majesty -- attended Kentucky Derby 133. She was 81 at the time.

Sources say it was the British monarch's first appearance in the United States since 1991 and she chose to come to Kentucky. Not super surprising considering her love for horse racing and she had (maybe still has) mares at a farm in Lexington.

A former Buckingham Palace press secretary spoke about the queen's affinity for horses, saying it dates back to her teenage years.

"There are those who rather sarcastically say she's better with animals than she is with human beings. But, you see, animals are always pleased to see you and they never answer back," Dickie Arbiter told WLKY back then. "She still rides. She likes riding. She's 81, but it would take a lot to keep her off a horse."

Watch WLKY's 2007 story in the player above

Fans stood for almost an hour to see the queen, most only caught her motorcade. But they were still excited to know she was around.

She got a tour of the trophy room and watched the Derby with her husband Prince Philip and others.

The queen stuck around for about three hours before she left. The next day, she was in Washington for a dinner with then-President George W. Bush.