{"id":31927,"date":"2022-09-15T13:34:15","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31927"},"modified":"2022-09-15T13:34:17","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T17:34:17","slug":"queen-and-stronach-shared-equestrian-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/queen-and-stronach-shared-equestrian-passion\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen and Stronach shared equestrian passion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

25 years ago this past June, Frank Stronach\u2019s horse, Awesome Again, won the Queen\u2019s Plate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time Stronach had been in Woodbine Racetrack\u2019s winner\u2019s circle, nor would it be the last \u2013 but his 1997 win was rather special: Queen Elizabeth II was on hand to present her namesake trophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the first meeting between the two individuals with a strong passion for racing and thoroughbreds, but it would not be the last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stronach is among the few individuals to have hosted the late monarch in a private capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the Queen\u2019s death in Scotland last Thursday at the age of 96, Stronach shared his memories of the monarch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were a lot of people [at Woodbine] and we had a little chat, but a few months later I got a call from her staff asking if I could meet with her,\u201d said the founder of Magna International. \u201cThey said the Queen was visiting Kentucky and she would like to drop by my farm [to see] my famous stallions and she did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe came at the time she said she would, there were some security staff there standing further away, but she and I spent almost an hour alone in the barn \u2013 with a stable hand so she could see the stallions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst of all, she\u2019s a great lady, very gracious. She loved horses and had a very good understanding of the horses: their confirmation, their pedigrees, etc., and I think she was planning to send some mares for the stallions. It was a lovely afternoon, very down-to-earth and normal and we had a great chat about the horses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conscious of her official role throughout The Commonwealth, Stronach says in this capacity the Queen had a \u201clittle bit more restrictions,\u201d but on the farm, away from cameras, and sharing their passion, \u201cshe was like a regular person \u2013 but with a lot of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNature takes its course,\u201d he says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how famous you are or how important you are, you\u2019ll die one of those days but I think she was such a respected person that the whole world recognized that and they expressed their feelings. Whatever duties she had, they were done within the framework of democracy, within the framework of fairness \u2013 and her great mark was she had a lot of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 years ago this past June, Frank Stronach\u2019s horse, Awesome Again, won the Queen\u2019s Plate. It wasn\u2019t the first time Stronach had been in Woodbine Racetrack\u2019s winner\u2019s circle, nor would it be the last \u2013 but his 1997 win was rather special: Queen Elizabeth II was on hand to present her namesake trophy. It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/2022-09-15-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8iX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 13:32:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}