Sean McCarthy recalls his adventures with the late Monty Roberts
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At the age of 18, in 1981, California trainer Sean McCarthy took a job that would change his life and send him around the world – he joined the team at Monty Roberts’s Flag Is Up Farm in Solvang, Calif.
With Roberts, who died at the farm at the age of 91 on July 31, McCarthy spent a decade working on a more nuanced method of breaking horses to the saddle.
At the time, Roberts had a prominent role in Thoroughbred racing as a pinhooker. In the 1970s, Roberts pinhooked Alleged, who won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 1977 and 1978.
“Back in those days, he was the top dog in terms of pinhookers,” McCarthy said, in reference to the custom of buying weanlings or yearlings and reselling them as 2-year-olds.
In the 1980s, Roberts would attend the Keeneland September yearling sale, while McCarthy would remain at the central California farm starting the breaking process. The work intensified when Roberts returned from the auction.
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“We’d break about 120 or 140 yearlings a year,” McCarthy said. “We always had a big consignment at 2-year-old sales.”
In advance of a 2-year-olds in-training sale at Hollywood Park in 1989, Roberts summoned McCarthy to the stable office to show him a letter from Britain, inviting Roberts to visit Queen Elizabeth II, an avid horsewoman.
“He hollered to me down the shed row,” McCarthy said. “He said, ‘Come here and look at this.’ It was a letter inviting us to Windsor Castle.”
McCarthy went along as an exercise rider and rode before Queen Elizabeth II.
“That was quite the adventure,” McCarthy recalled on Friday. “I’ll never forget riding up to her and thinking, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Queen Elizabeth II became aware of Roberts through the equestrian press, and sought to learn more about his methods of breaking young horses, which Roberts referred to as a “join up” between a horse and person. The practice stressed a passive and nonviolent approach to breaking.
Roberts made presentations on his methods at a variety of venues, including a parking lot in Yakima, Wash., in the 1980s.
“They put up a tent in a parking lot and put down a bunch of shavings,” McCarthy said. “The tent was kind of low. I said, ‘If this horse starts bucking, I’m going through the roof.’ ”
The presentation ended without incident.
In Britain, Roberts gave a demonstration to Queen Elizabeth II and her mother, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, at Windsor Castle. Roberts and the team were setting up for the demonstration when Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit during a rain storm, McCarthy remembers.
“She had her wellies on, a scarf and a wool skirt,” McCarthy said of Queen Elizabeth.
“I was never schooled on the protocols. I shook her hand and her mother’s hand.
“I look back on it and think more about it now. Not many guys get a chance to go over there and talk to the Queen of England.
“I was careful about how I said and what I said. She definitely would rather be in the stables than in the castle.”
Roberts, who had a successful career in rodeo, was the subject of several documentaries and wrote an autobiography published in 1996 – “The Man Who Listens to Horses.”
Later in life, Roberts moved away from Thoroughbreds and worked with a variety of breeds, McCarthy said.
“He was great to work for and work with,” McCarthy said. “For all his showmanship, he was a helluva horseman. He never got mad and never lost his patience.
“He accomplished so much in the horse world.”
McCarthy visited with Roberts earlier this summer at a rodeo in Santa Ynez, near Solvang. The Roberts farm, now called the California Horse Center, remains in operation.
McCarthy left Roberts in 1990 and began training in 1991.
Through Thursday, McCarthy had won 205 races. In 2014, the McCarthy-trained Majestic Harbor won the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita, now known as the Hollywood Gold Cup.
The current stable is led by the California-bred mare Grand Slam Smile, who has won three stakes this year and is scheduled to start in the $150,000 Solana Beach Stakes on turf at Del Mar on Aug. 15.
Grand Slam Smile won the 2025 Solana Beach Stakes.
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