Predictably animal rights activists have jumped on the bandwagon after Household Cavalry horses bolted - Sarah Todd

The person who can make a half-a-ton of horse do something it doesn’t want to do, be that jumping a fence or pulling a carriage, does not exist.

One of the most fundamental rules of horsemanship is that the horse has to enjoy its work, or it won’t lift so much as a hoof in co-operation.

Just stand at one of our county’s many summer shows and watch the children’s gymkhana classes. Those kids who take it a step too far (often verbally ‘encouraged’ from the sidelines to do so by over-competitive parents) and point ponies at too big a fence are soon brought back down to earth.

As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

The Household Cavalry horses have been bred for the job for over 350 years and the care they are given is out of this world. Some of the stories of how young recruits’ lives have been turned around as a result of learning to ride and looking after these horses are absolutely mind-blowing.

As are the videos of them enjoying their month-long summer holiday being ridden out and swimming in the sea on Holkham Beach on the Norfolk coast.

So then, what’s the alternative? No horses ridden and them all just kept out in fields for the fun of it? Dream on.

We once ended up with a 19-year-old pony because she had been retired but spent every single day at the gate of her paddock wanting to come in and do a job.

She continued competing until she was about 25 and even now, at 30, she is grumpy not having any purpose in her life. Horses are working animals and most need routine and work in their lives.

The real scandal emerging from the scenes of the horses galloping through the streets of London - after they appear to have been spooked by builders throwing concrete from an upstairs window into a truck below - is those people who continued driving as if they were nothing more than an inconvenience.

Anybody caught on camera revving their engines behind those poor horses, or who crossed through traffic lights in front of them, should be rounded up and put in the Tower of London.

The British Horse Society has long campaigned to improve driver awareness and in 2022 succeeded in getting an alteration in the new Highway Code which has been updated from the vague “pass horses wide and slow” to overtaking at no more than 10mph and at a distance of no less than two metres.

Action is needed now, on the back of this sad incident, to educate the public that horses aren’t machines, they are animals. They can react to loud noises.

If we had a pound for every time - even in our rural part of the world - somebody started an engine, be it car or lawnmower, just as you clip-clopped by we would have a fancy floodlit arena to ride around.

As a nation we are so far removed from the countryside and common sense; long gone are the days when people just instinctively knew to hang fire until horses were safely past. Not to chuck, for example, great lumps of concrete down to the ground in front of them.

But back to the point. The Prime Minister or somebody from the Royal family needs to visit the barracks this week and thank the cavalrymen, emergency services and the public that calmly stepped forward to help. But also, to make the most of this very public opportunity to raise awareness of both horse and rider safety.

In our world of the bland leading the bland we could soon end up with processions and state visits headed up with a lift, like a Saturday night at pub chucking out time, in some nondescript electric car.

What happened was a shame and doubtless very scary for those pedestrians who weren’t scrolling, head down on their phones, or oblivious with headphones on.

But the fact is 150 military horses are exercised on London’s roads and parks every morning, getting them used to noise and hazards, and nothing ever goes wrong.

People are far more likely to be mugged or hit by a car than a bolting horse.

Sometimes accidents will happen, but what’s the alternative? Living in a sterile namby-pamby world where the only horses left live in zoos?