Sir Michael Oswald, who played a key role in the royal family’s racing interests as the former manager of the royal studs, has died aged 86. It was on the day of Prince Philip’s funeral, Saturday 17 April, that he died after a long period of illness, according to the Times .
Sir Michael advised Her Majesty, 94, as well as the Queen Mother, and presided over their racing interests for almost 30 years. Oswald’s widow, Lady Angela, the daughter of 6th Marquess of Exeter and a former Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen Mother, paid tribute to her husband, saying: ‘He always said he had the most wonderful job anybody could ever have had and that for all his working life he was simply doing what he would have done had he been a rich man who didn't have to work.’
From racehorses to polo ponies, the Queen was a devoted horsewoman all her life
Racing is well known as a great and enduring passion of the Queen’s, commenting on her interest, Sir Michael previously said: 'There was never a better and more knowledgeable owner to answer to.'
Before taking up the post as the Queen’s racing advisor in 2003, Sir Michael worked for the Queen Mother – who had a preference for the ‘jumps’ over flat racing – from 1970 until her death in 2002. The Times reports how he told how the Queen Mother ‘preferred steeplechasing [to racing on the flat] because it was not so commercialised and arguably involved more colourful people, who were more fun’.
In the 2020 New Year Honours list, he was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO). Educated at Eton, throughout his time at school, he retained a subscription to Sporting Life, much to the chagrin of his housemaster. From school he joined the Scots Guards and as an officer cadet transferred to the 1st Battalion The King’s Own Royal Regiment, which soon departed for the Korean War. On returning to civilian life in 1954, he rowed and read history at King’s College, Cambridge (as his father had done).
It was a few years into married life that he got his first break on the Lordship and Egerton studs at Newmarket, later rising up the ranks to manage it. In the Times Lady Angela recalled discussing with her husband how ‘if it didn’t work out, we could always return to London with our tails between our legs’. Years later he was recruited as manager of the Royal Studs, which for six years ran from Hampton Court, a royal stud since the 16th century. In due course he moved to the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, where the family lived nearby in a spacious former vicarage.
Nicky Henderson, a trainer of royal jump horses, told the Racing Post how even in retirement, Sir Michael would go ‘absolutely anywhere’ to watch Her Majesty’s horses run, even into his eighties.
Sir Michael Oswald, GCVO, former manager of the Royal Studs, was born on April 21, 1934. He died after a long illness on April 17, 2021, aged 86
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