Military Horses running loose in London

[supercalafragilisticexpealidocious]

I saw this article on the Guardian.

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

It made me think of a couple of things- that this is an example of why drivers should indeed be careful when driving near horses because of the damage they can inflict to cars when spooked. And it also made me wonder whether it's justifiable to use horses for military use these days, particularly when presumably a lot of the military are not experienced horse people. Thoughts?

I suspect that the horse guards on duty in London are reasonably good riders.

There’s already a three on this in another section. Apparently builders pouring concrete were what the horses spooked at.

I’ve always liked the pomp and circumstance of the parades with horses, but that probably makes me a hypocrite as I wouldn’t want my horse having their lives. I’ve also had a lot of random reels of tourists stroking the guard horses on Facebook and the horses often look really uncomfortable in the bits, with tongues hanging out. Not something you see often in a normal horse in a normal bit.

Those poor horses. I really hope none are too seriously hurt.

Does anyone know if there will be 'consequences' for the horses? I don't mean punishment, obviously, but will they now be deemed unsuitable and retired? I sort of hope so.

I don’t. Most of them have learned to ride on a pretty intensive course when they go onto that division. There was a tv series about it years ago.

That grey horse looks pretty badly injured I hope it’s ok. I don’t think horses have any place in today’s cities - not as carriage horses, military horses or especially police horses. People like to see them, but it’s not a great life for a horse.

Yeah or the tourist reaches for the reins and the rider jerks the horses mouth with those bits - so the horse gets punished

Probably not. The army takes soldiers with no experience and puts them through a 20 week course. That's not a lot of time to learn horsemanship.

Greys always look awful when they bleed at all, so hopefully the injury isn’t too bad. I came across a horse galloping full tilt into our village last year having unseated his rider a couple of miles away, and the videos really reminded me of that. He was just in a panic and I was able to stop him fairly easily by grabbing his reins, running alongside him for a few paces to slow him down and making soothing noises (and knowing about horses). He was only about 16.2 though and I presume these are bigger - plus there were several of them so harder to stop as they were in a bit of a herd, and of course not many people on the street in London know anything about horses.
I do hope neither horses nor riders (or passers-by) are badly injured, and that this doesn’t mean the end of army horses in London.
I can’t believe they got all the way to Limehouse

Sorry I didn't realise there was another thread.

One of the horses looks very badly injured- it is covered in blood. And it sounds like at least one of them went through a windscreen at some point. I worry for what happens to the horses now. Do they actually bother to rehab them if they are badly injured?

I too love watching the horses in parade on TV but I suspect it's a bit of a miserable life with limited turn out and lots of stressful "desensitisation" training for them. And I really don't think they should be made to stand on guard for hours on end with random people coming up to them all day. Whenever the horses spook in those situations it seems a burly army chap in fatigues comes over to "assist" which basically looks like shunting the horse around to get it to stand still.

It reminds me of the Lloyd's Bank advert.

I'm sure they'll be getting good veterinary care and an assessment of their ability/temperament for public duty will be carried out. They could have had inexperienced riders.

I live near a place where military horses are walked around the streets daily. It's a wonderful sight to behold but one rider has control of two horses usually. I can see how this could have happened.

As per PP, greys can look very dramatic if they cut themselves and flesh wounds do often bleed a lot without being necessarily that serious (a bit like some head wounds in people where there can be a lot of bleeding from the scalp but the actual bone and brain underneath can be completely fine) so he's probably OK (it's muscle damage or broken bones you'd really worry about and from the very brief footage online he didn't look lame) - at a guess he'll be stitched up and absolutely fine so long as the wound doesn't get infected. I don't know specifically about household cavalry but putting aside sentiment their horses are valuable assets that have to go through extensive training so they absolutely would rehab if there's a reasonable chance the horse will return to active duty, otherwise I'd guess as with any other pet animal it's a case of understanding what the 'rehab' entails and what quality of life the animal would have after. They might be fussy about scarring or cosmetic issues particularly on a grey though so like with a show horse an injury could cut their working life short. The household cavalry do send their horses to retirement after active service though so if an injured animal couldn't recover enough to return to duty I suspect they'd be pensioned off https://horsetrust.org.uk/our-residents/military-horses/

Just popping in to say/reassure that I live very near the Horses Trust linked above and it's a really special place, staffed by wonderful people and a team of really dedicated volunteers. Lots of retired military horses there living what seems to be a very happy life and lots of information on their stalls about their previous history as well as what they like to get up to now and which horse friends they like to socialise with the most!

Trigger warning - Hyde Park Bombing

I am old enough to remember Sefton and The Hyde Park bombing. The bombs were packed with nails and Sefton was the most injured horse that survived. https://www.thewarhorsememorial.org/100-hero-horses/100-hero-horses/hero-horse10

He was looked after so well by the Household Cavalry that I am sure these horses will be shown the same level of care.

I’ve also had a lot of random reels of tourists stroking the guard horses on Facebook

Because every animal is just another cute furbaby for the vast majority of people now 🙄 Thick as mince. No sense, no knowledge of the animal world.

I suppose I do take comfort that this is the first time I've ever seen this story, it's newsworthy therefore happens incredibly infrequently.

The horses are there every single day after all. They are part of the fabric of London life and history and like it or not undoubtedly bring tourists and money with them.

So people catastrophising about horses in modern cities etc etc should perhaps consider every other day when nothing bad happens to horses.

From TFL: "in 2022, ... 102 people being killed, 3,859 being seriously injured and 23,246 being slightly injured"

The city is dangerous, but mostly for people.

Re: the horse riders. I was taught by ex cavalry - when he rode he was very stiff, BUT he knew his horse craft. Was incredibly knowledgeable and handled his animals with great care.

Seems the optimism yesterday was misplaced. Two of the horses are in a "serious condition" and have had to have surgery 😢

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/25/runaway-horses-in-serious-condition-after-bolting-through-central-london

If you're London based, the Household Cavalry Museum does really interesting opening days sometime during school holidays. I went to one a few years ago and it was really fascinating.

Sky has a slightly more informative report, quoting the Household Cavalry. They said two had been operated on, one of which had been taken to an equine hospital, and the ones that didn’t undergo surgery are being cared for by vets at Hyde Park Barracks and are expected to return to duty in due course. The soldiers are not seriously injured.

A witness said that unmarked police cars were chasing them, which clearly didn’t help and possibly made the whole situation worse.

It’s lovely to see those horses who bolted through London looking so well, charging round their recovery paddock on the bbc news tonight.