How the “king’s” horses escaped and ran wild in London – Two of them in serious condition

Two of the British army horses that escaped in central London yesterday morning, causing a disturbance and injuring four people, are today in a “serious condition”, a British deputy minister said.

“There were five horses and they were all caught. Three of them are fine, two are unfortunately in a serious condition, which we are monitoring,” Undersecretary for Defense James Cartledge told Sky News.

These horses are called Vida and Quaker.

London: Horses spooked by falling concrete

As APE-MPE reminds, the episode occurred yesterday, Wednesday, not far from Buckingham Palace, during the outing of a group of seven horses of the Household Cavalry, an elite unit which mainly ensures the protection of the royal family and participates in the various ceremonies.

According to the army, the animals were startled by a falling piece of concrete being carried by a crane and five of them galloped off, knocking down four horsemen, three of whom were injured. Their lives are not in danger, it was clarified by the same source.

Stunned Londoners then watched the horses gallop wildly, one covered in blood, through the capital’s boulevards, overtaking motorists, bumping into taxis and buses and scaring cyclists.

A taxi driver told LBC he felt a loud bang while sitting in his car, then saw “three or four horses” gallop away, leaving his car battered, bloodstained and the windows smashed.

The one injured horse had a history of erratic behavior

A military source told the Sun that the blood-soaked white horse, Vida, was “lively” and had a history of similar frightful outbursts.

The particular horse allegedly kicked a soldier in the head during the coronation of King Charles, the Daily Mail reports.

Onlookers yesterday said one of the Cavalry troopers was left “screaming in agony” after being thrown from his horse when it hit a car next to the Clermont Hotel in Buckhead Road.

It is “extremely unlikely” that such events will happen again

Some famous army cavalry regiments have their stables within the British capital and horses are regularly seen around government buildings in Whitehall, Buckingham Palace and near Hyde Park.

These horsemen participate in the parade of the British monarch’s birthday, which is traditionally organized in June, reports APE-MPE.

According to Cartledge, it is “extremely unlikely” such events will happen again, as the army trains daily without incident in central London with nearly 150 horses.

But after this incident, associations for the protection of animals called on the military forces to stop using horses for parades, underlining, like the British non-governmental organization Animal Justice Project on the social network X, that “horses do not belong to us”. .