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

I regularly cycle pass the household cavalry stables and this is very strange as the horses are ridden through Admiralty arch to BP for the changing of the guards on Wednesdays and Sundays and there is literally thousands of people lining up to watch them so a really busy place with lots of unexpected things going on all the time which the soldiers and police have to manage. I have never seen a horse been out of control in the hundreds of times I have been there. Something happened which we might not be privy to.

Awful.
Youngs Brewery had horses bolting in fear after a brute threw a lump of wood at them for holding up the traffic.

Horses are not suited to modern urban environments- It’s not fair on them They often spook and slip on tarmac.

Yes, a very loud unexpected noise from the nearby building site. Which we are privvy to because we have been told. That is very different to the sound of large crowds of people. And it only takes one spooked horse to then cause a few others to get spooked. Horses are animals, and no amount of training will make them completely immune to being scared.

Yes - I'm not a horse person, so I am speculating, but I do know (as a mother) that a comparatively little bit of blood goes a long way.

This horse is bolting, adrenaline will be spiking and his heart pumping the blood round (and out) at a heck of a rate. Can only hope that it's a smallish injury and it is increased blood pressure causing the horrific sight we see here.

Edit to make a sentence make sense

God Almighty!

I remember the news reports on that incident - it was fucking horrific!

That poor cow - they hit her at full speed time and again before they killed her, the stupid bastards.

It was awful!

Side point, but I’m astonished at how little footage there seems to be of the incident, given they were running for miles through the centre of London at rush hour.

They were moving from from traffic lights , but don’t let that stop you having an irrelevant rant at cyclists.

Even if you're moving with a green light, you need to check there isn't a twat who has jumped their light coming at you. Or indeed someone with brake failure

Or in this case a bolting horse

After all, we teach DC to check the before crossing the road even with a green man. Same principle.

They don't just put horses down unless they are injured. If they can't be retrained or are unsuitable to cavalry work, then they will be sold to a quieter location..they are extremely well bred horses. They're not just going to be taken to the knackers yard.

When I first heard that there were riderless horses galloping around in terror near Whitehall I thought they just meant Rishi Sunak's government

Fucling Hell that's horrendous.

I'm rural and used to be a copper. We were forever chasing horses and cows up and down our little bit of dual carriageway. Yes, there can be a danger to the public in these instances, but with the help of the community we always managed to safely catch the animals.

The Household Calvary are out and about in London a lot admittedly usually at the absolute crack of dawn and do a fair amount of work on the roads presumably to desensitise the horses for ceremonial work. They're stabled right beside Hyde Park. The Kings Troop are stabled in Woolwich and they take the horses out locally too, usually riding one, leading one.

Horses can be a bit like sheep, one panics and scares the crap out of the others. Or backs into one or two, unseats a few riders and then it all goes south. In this case if a building site made some quite unusual noise like pile driving it may have started this incident. 5 in one go for horses considered to be somewhat bombproof by ordinary standards is unusual though so I can only assume it was an inordinately loud crash.

I also can't believe the cyclists pulled out in front of the horses. Batsh*t. I'd have been getting off my bike and getting ready to hide behind a pillar given how out of control they looked. They are huge horses to stop at a trot never mind a gallop.

Same !

What is wrong with these police.
Why on earth couldnt they just catch the cow fgs!

I hate seeing dogs near roads not on leads for this reason. No animal is bomb proof, not matter how well trained. Why risk it?

I don't remember that at all, (fortunately).
There must have been a very good reason why she couldn't be tranquilised via a dart? Out of interest, does anyone know why?

Contractors making large noises should warn anyone that may be affected.
We had it signed into contractors contract when running a site in Soho.

Whoever is running that site in Belgravia needs to step up their H&S.

There are lots of news articles about it. It seems the owner was with the police so guessing he gave permission.
Not good enough.

People eat cows so I suppose they thought it was OK.

The police investigated themselves 🤯😳after a public outcry and decided they had done nothing wrong.

This is just awful, poor horses hope they are all ok and the riders....normally they don't get spooked easily. It is very unusual for this to happen...

Christ, that's absolutely bloody awful 😡

I would like to think that all the building firms working in or near Knightsbridge will now add another line to their risk assessment and method statement to glance about to check for horses before dropping rubble.

If builders know they will be causing excessive noise they are supposed to notify ‘vulnerable businesses’. In fact it should be factored into their timetabling of works.

Apparently it was a large amount of building materials dropped from height.

So it could have been accidental.

Not accidental. There's a conveyor belt leading to a rubbish truck.

That seems to assume that it was the result of planned activity.

Even with immaculate H&S, accidents can still happen. It's often about minimising, not eliminating risk