Horses Running Free in Central London

[Melontree]

I just saw this breaking piece. One of the horses is bleeding/has blood on it. They're both saddled and bridled - I can't imagine what's happened here. I'm sure there'll be an explanation at some point, but I truly hope the horses and riders are okay.

Anyone in the area seen/heard anything?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/24/horses-on-loose-central-london

Poor horses and riders. I expect the bleeding horse is the one that smashed into the front of a bus and shattered the windscreen.

One of them reached as far as Limehouse! Must have been terrified.

Using horses in this way in the middle of London seems very unnecessary in this day and age.

Quite, why the Army needs horses now is beyond me, apparently they have twice as many horses as usable tanks!

The Household Cavalry barracks are next to Hyde Park. Lot of people ride horses in Hyde Park. There are two riding schools and a couple of tracks for horses which go around the park.

The latest update said they're thought to have been spooked by the sound of construction workers moving concrete. Which seems odd - wouldn't they hear that sort of thing frequently?

BbC reporting it was apparently noise from building work that cause 5 horses to bolt, throwing four riders.

As a side issue... I never understood drivers being impatient and acting like docks around horses. This is what happens when horses spook... do you really want your car to be close to that even if you don't care about the horse and its rider?

I’ve just been reading about this. How awful. The poor soldier who fell seemed to be hurt quite badly. Really hope he and the horses are ok.

I’ve seen a photo of a bus with a smashed in windscreen which was involved. Eyewitness talking about a soldier on the floor screaming and reports saying a tent has been put up around him which sounds bad. I wonder if they were operating on him at the roadside? Really hoping he and the horses are ok.

It's saying THREE separate incidents caused this. What on earth?

BBC is reporting that it was something to do with a building site that spooked the horses into bolting. Then there were 3 incidents with loose horses/collisions

The location of the blood looks awful though doesn’t it? It’s kind of everywhere:(

My grey horse injured his shoulder once and at first glance it looked horrific - very much like the grey in London. The emergency vet was called and when he was cleaned up, it was only about 1 inch long.

That grey in the video was moving well so I suspect he'll be ok - fingers crossed 🤞

I would imagine (and I know nothing about horses, so I could be totally wrong) is that its a lot of smaller cuts from the broken glass. Just awful though, poor things.

Bow to any MNetters with superior knowledge, but I think that whacking up a screen round a casualty isn't that unusual these days for incidents where invasion of a patient's privacy (by camera phones) is likely. Obviously not every incident, as only some are in the news, and very few are top story/breaking news pop-up level of incident. And it's only really possible with single/low numbers of casualties and only needed when in crowded areas.

It's one thing to film an unfolding incident (as that can be passed to investigators, who sometimes do appeal for footage) but shabby when it's someone receiving medical attention afterwards. And it does happen and worse get posted online.

Hope all horses and humans are doing well.

Needed this woman there.

Hope all the horses and riders are OK and make a full recovery.

Something about this doesn't make any sense. Surely these horses would be trained to be used to construction noises and similar

So... In the park then, not in the middle of busy London traffic?

Sadly I can't see the horses going back to duty as won't be trusted which will likely mean an untimely end I suspect.

Yes. But if they ditch their riders they could run out of the park and onto the roads.

Horse are unpredictable creatures. Even the best trained horse can get a fright sometimes.

It’s not impossible that a new or damaged piece of equipment caused a noise they had never heard before, maybe particularly loud or high pitched.
Or one of them was having a bad day and was already on edge, and then his spooking spooked the others.

They get retired to private homes - the cavalry have an established rehoming system. They would only be PTS if their injuries were too severe.

If I remember correctly then some of the horses were retired from "active service " during lockdown That's why at the first Trooping the Colour afterwards a lot of the horses seemed unsettled - they were new to the job and had little experience of crowds.

What do you think happened then?