The Queen Mother was one of the most successful National Hunt owners in the history of steeplechasing.

Trainers, lads and jockeys regarded her as the first lady of the winter game, queen of the course and paddock.

The Queen Mother loved the sport and steeplechasing loved her for the part she played in its flowering as a popular national activity.

The Queen Mother was a familiar figure to the racing fraternity, dressed in raincoat and rain hat down in the paddock among the horses and the riders in the most atrocious weather, with as keen an eye as any man there.

Sporting Life and the form book are said to have been the Queen Mother's favourite reading.

Racing over the sticks was her passion. The 1964-65 season was one of her high points as an owner, her horses winning 27 races.

Later, the magnificent Game Spirit, a favourite with his royal owner, was to win 21 races in six seasons. Game Spirit died from a massive lung haemorrhage at Newbury, with the Queen Mother watching from the stands.

Major Peter Cazalet, her first trainer, sent out 1,100 winners during his career, nearly a quarter of them for his main patron, before dying of cancer in 1973.

The Queen Mother never raced on quite the same scale following Major Cazalet's death.