Queen Elizabeth took her horse racing seriously when she attended Queen's Plate

There are certainly worse people to be cornered by at a social reception than Queen Elizabeth II.

But there Jim Lawson was, in a small boardroom at Toronto's Woodbine racetrack, hours before the 2010 running of the Queen's Plate horse race.

"She knew that our family had a horse in the race that day and she pulled me aside — and I will never forget this — she wanted to talk about horse breeding and she wanted to know my family's history in the sport," recalled Lawson, now the CEO at Woodbine.

Lawson remembers preparing for weeks ahead of the Queen's visit, versing himself in royal protocols for what he thought would be a fleeting greeting. But in a room full of dignitaries the Queen sought him out, eager to pick his brain on the intricacies of breeding and pedigree.

"She probably had an audience of 35 or 40 people in the room and I awkwardly monopolized her, but it wasn't my doing," he said Thursday after news of the British monarch's death.

It was a 15-minute conversation Lawson said he's thought of often over years.

"Her level of knowledge about horse breeding was at a level that shocked me, and we were talking about North American breeding, not Irish or English breeding," Lawson said. "It was remarkable and her intellectual curiosity about breeding was off the charts."

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Lawson said the Queen had clearly done her research and knew all about Lawson's family's horse, Ghost Fleet, which was slated to run that day. She was particularly interested in its connection to Northern Dancer, one of the greatest Canadian racehorses and a prodigious sire.

"She said, 'tell me about the horse in the race and I understand that he comes from a fine