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

Haha yes equine twattery is always on the cards 😆

DS's mate said the horses can be big twats off duty, albeit it lovely big twats.
The soldiers reckon the horses conspire together in the stables & decide who's going to be the naughiest horse at bedtime!

That reminds me of the (mythical, I'm sure) story about the new recruit who left his brushes etc on a bucket within reach of the first horse in its stall, went out to get something and came back to a line of expectant equine faces ... and no sign of his brushes until he went all the way down the line. 😂

I can quite believe it, I worked with show jumpers many moons ago, they were impeccably behaved in the ring, on the horse box etc at home they could be very....... Challenging.
Horses that do jobs tend to be intelligent and when they're supposed to be having downtime they can get bored and amuse themselves.
They had a month off in summer and got turned away as a herd - they were a the worst bunch of reprobates ever in that month!

🤣🤣🤣 they’re plotting!

I remember a horse that loved rolling in water.
If he had a novice on his back he’d know straight away ( well all horses know this to be fare ) and he’d immediately take advantage by strolling off and eating the long grass ignoring the rider and yes as soon as we’d get to water he’d immediately plunge in and soak the rider.

They are extremely clever and I’m sure all having a laugh about it at bedtime.

Yes, I’m sure they all get together and have a chat to decide what mayhem they’re going to cause the next day.

I’m also sure they get together and decide who is going to injure themselves in some obscure and random way. I had 2 weeks of having to get the vet out every other day while my 2 took it in turns to colic. Was terrifying and expensive!

My 2 take each other’s rugs off, untie each other when they’re tied up, take it in turns to sniff the electric fence by the gate so they can panic and tread on my foot, my oldie has worked out how to escape from her stable and let her friends out - I clip a lead rope to the bolt to stop her opening it but if I ever forget, she knows. The other one, I swear goes and looks for stuff to spook at - doesn’t care about cars, buses, lorries, loads like a superstar, but spooks at random shit - daffodils, her haynet, her own poo.

I swear they’re all on a wind up and they’re all laughing at me once they’re in their stables for the night

@alloalloallo and they think humans are the intelligent species. I'm sure a long list of other creatures are just biding their time.

I'm grinning at these anecdotes and boggling at the cleverness of horses.

It is sad that, to everyone except sensitive and informed horsey people, the intelligence of horses is far less evident than - say - the intelligence of dogs.

So much of dogs' body language and social interaction is very similar to that of humans, so we can 'get' them better and work with their intelligence more easily. But I guess you have to be both empathic and very experienced/trained to build a similar rapport with horses.

It is lovely to see how much this rapport has improved over the years, thgough. I was a horse-mad teen decades ago, and when I look at documentaries etc about horse training now, compared with then, it seems so much more sensitive and led by horsey ways of being and understanding.

And to think I was under the impression Mr Ed was fiction! 😆

spooks at random shit - daffodils, her haynet, her own poo 🤣

I'm loving all these stories, so funny! They sound like brats 😆I'll have to ask my ex (HC) has he any funny stories & report back

No one’s mentioned the intelligence of cows yet.

In my younger years holidaying at my grandads in Ireland we had to collect the water from a hole in the ground a couple of fields away.
Cows were in these fields and they would see us trapsing through the fields to get our buckets filled and they would just look on.
However
On the way back with our now full buckets they would walk over to us and push us about thereby spilling the water out of the buckets!
Every time without fail.

Was it because we were ‘stealing’ their water or were they just having a laugh 🤣

@alloalloallo
I used to ride, long time ago. I remember a horse like that, was fine with cars and trucks, but a crisp bag in a bush was the scariest thing in the world.

I also knew a horse who was scared 😱 of the noise baby buggies made but again fine with bikes and vehicles.

@Kandalama OK I'll confess I love watching "the hoof GP" on YouTube, trims cows and bulls feet.
He's has often said Cows have two though processes a curious 'what's that 🤔' and scared 'WHAT'S THAT 😱'

@Needanewname42 aww I love this!! I'll have to check him out, thanks!

@Kandalama I love cows too, I used to "visit" with the neighbouring ones when my mam lived down the country, so pretty & funny & don't get me started on Scottish Highland Cows 😍

This post on horses vs cows always makes me laugh.

Fantastic
Poster sounds exhausted by it all 🤣🤣🤣

😂. That made me laugh. It’s very true!

My 2 broke out of their field a couple of weeks ago.

1 of them had a complete meltdown, did about 400 laps of the yard carpark and gave me a heart attack before seeming to realise she had absolutely no fucking idea why she was behaving like a lunatic and took herself back to her field.

My oldie headed straight for the (small) feed room, where she squeezed her big arse in through the doorway and then discovered she couldn’t turn round. so we had to reverse her (reluctantly) back out again.

Oh my god @spiderlight that is brilliant!! 😆I'm saving this for a rainyy day thanks for sharing

Horse or cow @alloalloallo ? either way that’s hilarious

I really wished I worked with animals more.
My sons a zoologist I’m going to have to see if he has any anecdotes now.

This article is interesting.

There’s a lot of rehashing in the Spectator article from this one:

https://www.thefield.co.uk/country-house/queens-horses-black-beauties-knightsbridge-31908

So what?

The Field article is very long and quite technical in parts. The Speccie article is short and aimed at ordinary readers.