LONDON — Princess Anne has sustained head injuries believed to be caused by a horse and remains in a hospital for observation where she is expected to make a full recovery, Buckingham Palace announced Monday.
Anne, King Charles III’s sister and Queen Elizabeth II’s only daughter, sustained “minor injuries and concussion” and remains at a hospital in Bristol for observation, the palace statement said.
A royal source said that she was walking on the grounds of her estate in Gloucestershire on Sunday when the incident occurred. While the exact cause of the injuries is unconfirmed, the source said that Anne’s medical team said that the injuries are consistent with a potential impact from a horse’s head or legs.
“The King has been kept closely informed and joins the whole Royal Family in sending his fondest love and well-wishes to the princess for a speedy recovery,” the palace said.
It seems as if Anne’s identities as an accomplished horsewoman and the royals’ most dependable event goer have come into conflict.
Anne, 73, is one of the most popular and hardest-working members of the royal family. She is also a keen horsewoman and competed in the 1976 Olympic Games as a member of the British equestrian team.
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The source said that Anne’s husband, Timothy Laurence, and her two children, Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips, were on the estate at the time. Her husband accompanied her to the hospital. It was not clear who called emergency services.
The palace said that Anne’s engagements “for the week ahead will be postponed,” meaning she will not attend a state banquet with the emperor and empress of Japan.
Several members of the British royal family have been in and out of hospital in recent months. Both Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales, had medical procedures in the hospital, which is where doctors discovered they had cancer.
The palace has not revealed what type of cancer either of them have. Catherine recently attended the king’s annual birthday parade — where Anne appeared astride a horse — and said that she hoped to join “a few public engagements over the summer,” but added that “I am not out of the woods yet.”
One of the horse’s in the parade was among those that bolted through central London earlier in April after being startled by construction work.