Princess Anne Remembers “Nothing” of Horse Accident

Last week, Princess Anne went on the first overseas royal tour of the year, where she visited a center for survivors of sexual assault and a military monument. In between those engagements, she opened up about the head injury she experienced last summer, which led to a five-day stay at Bristol’s Southmead Hospital.

In an interview with the Press Association’s Tony Jones, the sister of King Charles III said that she remembered “nothing” of the incident where she was believed to be hit in the head by a horse, adding that she didn’t remember going to the field on her Gatcombe Park estate where she was injured. “I know where I thought I was going and that was to go to the chickens,” she said. “No, nothing to do with horses. I don’t have any idea what I was doing in the field, because I never normally went that way.”

The princess was eventually air-lifted to the hospital, and Buckingham Palace later announced that she was being treated for a concussion and minor headwounds. The princess told Jones she was lucky to have avoided a more catastrophic brain injury. “You’re jolly lucky... if you can continue to be more or less compos mentis, and last summer I was very close to not being. Take each day as it comes, they say,” she said. “You are sharply reminded that every day is a bonus really.”

When asked if she suffered any longterm effects, the famously quippy princess replied with a joke. “As far as I know, nobody else thinks so,” she said. “They haven’t been honest enough to tell me yet. So far, so good.”

Though she canceled a few engagements and a trip to Canada during her recovery, she was still the royal who racked up the largest number of engagements in 2024, with 217 events, according to an unofficial annual count of the Court Circular. Despite his cancer diagnosis and break from public duties, the king came in second with 186 engagements.