It was a heart-stopping sight. On 24 April this year, blood-drenched horses galloped through rush-hour traffic in central London, smashing chaotically into a tourist bus and a taxi, before careening along pavements in blind panic. The horses, which serve in the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment guarding the king, were on their daily morning exercises near Buckingham Palace when loud noises from a building site caused them to bolt and rampage through the capital for more than two hours. Six people were hospitalised with minor injuries, but all the horses survived in what seemed a once-in-a-lifetime event. Then, on 1 July, it happened again. Three regal horses bolted through Knightsbridge, this time fleeing a London bus.
Having just published Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History, William T Taylor knows a thing or two about horses and he acknowledges the curiousness of the horses’ escape when I call him at his home in Colorado. “The funny thing about our modern world is that horses are so deeply embedded in so much of our culture,” he says. “That grew out of their role in things like transport, communication and agriculture. It’s a powerful example, these military horses. It might take them escaping and running amok for us to think about it, but it has actually always struck me, when visiting London, just what a majestic and dangerous symbol of power and authority they represent.”
