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Queen Elizabeth II

National celebrations planned for The Queen’s 90th birthday next year

The first details of major celebrations for The Queen’s 90th birthday next spring have just been revealed. And the big event will be marked with a special horse show at Windsor.

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The Queen will celebrate her 90th birthday with a special horse show at Windsor

The Queen’s birthday is on April 21st but these celebrations will take place at Home Park, Windsor between May 12th and May 15th 2016. This birthday show will feature 600 horses and 1500 performers, and there will be room for a crowd of 7,000 for each night’s performance.

The special 90-minute show will pay tribute to many of the things that have been so important to The Queen throughout her life. It will feature horses and riders from Canada, New Zealand and Fiji among other countries and will include pipers and drummers.

The Queen will attend the last night while others members of the Royal Family will be present on the other evenings. Among the star turns confirmed for this huge celebration is the Welsh singer, Katherine Jenkins, who was on hand today to help announce the event.

The celebrations are being held next May to coincide with the annual Windsor Horse Show. The Queen also made a brief, unexpected cameo appearance before the world’s media today as they gathered for the announcement of her birthday bonanza. She arrived to pay a visit to this year’s Show during the press call and whizzed past the gathered crowds in a Range Rover wearing a headscarf.

But although she didn’t stop to say so it is understood that the celebrations have her complete backing. Simon Brooks-Ward, who will produce and direct the birthday show and who also runs the Windsor Horse Show, said that the particular event will ‘celebrate a truly remarkable life.’

The Queen is already the longest-lived British monarch having surpassed the record set by Queen Victoria, who was 81 years, seven months and 29 days old at the time of her death in 1901. And in September this year, The Queen will take another of her great, great grandmother’s claims to fame when she breaks her record as the longest reigning British monarch.

There are no formal celebrations planned for that historic occasion. It is believed, at the moment, that The Queen will be at Balmoral on the day she takes the record, September 11th 2015, as she is usually at her Scottish retreat at that time of year.

But in April and May of 2016 there will be plenty of festivities to mark yet another significant moment in an already historic reign. And, fittingly, this special celebration will be centred around The Queen’s lifelong passion for horses – everyone should get to spend their birthday just how they want to, after all.

photo credit: Liz Smith via Flickr

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