The Princess Royal has said she has no memory of the accident that happened at home last summer

Princess Anne’s horse-related accident last year may have been more dire than the public realized.

Over the weekend, The Sunday Times published an exclusive profile on King Charles’ sister, who turns 75 in August, where a source made the claim.

“Her accident was so much worse than anyone let on, and it took quite a while for her to feel herself again,” a source told the outlet about Anne’s June 2024 accident.

Last summer, the Princess Royal was hospitalized for five days after Buckingham Palace announced that she “sustained minor injuries and concussion following an incident on the Gatcombe Park estate,” her country home. The palace said that Anne was hospitalized “as a precautionary measure for observation” and was “expected to make a full and swift recovery.”

Because of the concussion she sustained, the exact details of the “incident” could not be ascertained. However, her injuries were consistent with a potential impact from a horse’s head or legs.

The Princess Royal, a former Olympian and lifelong equestrian, has said that she has no memory of what happened and that the accident reminded her how precious life is.

“It just reminds you, shows you — you never quite know, something [happens] and you might not recover,” she told the Press Association during a solo tour of South Africa in January, the BBC reported.

“You’re jolly lucky… if you can continue to be more or less compos mentis [of sound mind], and last summer I was very close to not being. Take each day as it comes, they say,” she said.

Princess Anne said that there were no long-term effects from what happened and added, “You are sharply reminded that every day is a bonus really.”

The King’s sister returned to royal work two weeks after she was discharged from the hospital and still topped the list as the “hardest-working” member of the royal family, by count of official engagements recorded in The Court Circular, for 2024.

The Sunday Times said that she logged 474 engagements last year, keeping the top spot she’s held since 2021.

The only daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth has said that retirement isn’t an option when it comes to the royal life she was born into, with a source telling the outlet about her vision for the next few years.

“She has said her plan is to push on [with work] until she is 80, then start winding down a bit, and then copy the [late] Duke of Edinburgh and wind down completely at 90,” a source said about the inspiration Anne is taking from her late father, Prince Philip.

It’s been said that Princess Anne inherited much of her father’s direct disposition, and the late Duke of Edinburgh retired from public life in August 2017, just a few weeks after his 96th birthday.