Monty Roberts: ‘Horse whisperer’ and close friend of the late Queen Elizabeth dies aged 91

Renowned horse trainer Monty Roberts has died at his farm in Solvang, California. He was 91.

Roberts was known the world over for his nonviolent method of training and his ‘join-up’ technique, which uses gestures and eye contact to gain a horse’s trust in under an hour.

His daughter, Debbie Roberts Loucks, announced his death in a social media post.

She told the New York Times that the cause was complications from an autoimmune disease.

Roberts began riding as a small child and quickly became a Hollywood stunt double, standing in for the likes of Mickey Rooney and Charlton Heston.

He started to develop his training method after watching his father, who was also a horse trainer, use a conventional fear-based approach to breaking a horse.

He went on to study animal science at California Polytechnic State University and in 1966 founded Flag Is Up Farms in Solvang.

In 1989, the late Queen Elizabeth II – an avid horsewoman – asked Roberts to come to the UK to demonstrate his training method to her stable staff.

The pair became firm friends, and the Queen urged Roberts to write a book about his method, which was published in 1996 as The Man Who Listens to Horses.

The pair remained in contact for the rest of Elizabeth’s life, and in 2011 she appointed him an Honorary Member of the Royal Victorian Order for “services to Her Majesty’s racing establishment”.

He attended her funeral in 2022, and in 2023, a documentary named The Cowboy and the Queen was released, detailing their friendship.

Roberts said that the Queen “completely changed my life”.

His daughter, Roberts Loucks, wrote that she was announcing his death with “profound sadness”.

She went on: “For the world, he was known as the man who listens to horses. To me, he was simply Dad, a man of extraordinary kindness, unwavering integrity, and an unshakable belief that trust could accomplish what force never could.

“While our hearts are broken, we also find comfort in knowing that his legacy lives on every time someone chooses compassion over force, listens before asking, and seeks a better partnership with their horse.”