Injured Household Cavalry horses offered new home after rampaging through streets of London

The UK’s oldest equine charity has offered to rehome the runaway Household Cavalry horses should they be unable to return to military duty, The Independent can reveal.

Five people were injured after seven service horses — one of which was covered in blood — ran riot through central London on Wednesday, smashing into cars, buses and bringing parts of the capital to a standstill.

“There were five horses. They have all been recovered. Three of them are fine, two of them are unfortunately in a relatively serious condition and obviously we will be monitoring that condition,” the defence minister James Cartlidge told Sky News this morning.

Now The Horses Trust has volunteered to rescue the injured pair, who are thought to have been “spooked by builders” while having their morning exercise, with the charity adding that they have “many retired military horses” residing at their sanctuary already.

Jessica Tallman, Director of Fundraising and Communications, told The Independent: “If the decision was made for them not to return to work, we would always welcome them into the care of our charity.

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“The Horse Trust are experts in research and the care of service horses, and we have many retired military horses residing at our sanctuary.”

The Independent has put this offer to the Household Cavalry directly.

The revelation comes after Redwings Horse Sanctuary explained why the situation, which required two of the horses to be operated on, may have escalated so quickly.

“The incident that spooked those horses must have been fairly dramatic for them to have taken off like that,” Nic De Brauwere, Head of Behaviour, at the charity told The Independent.

“When horses are in flight or fight mode, they will continue to run away from what they think could be a dangerous situation until they feel calm enough to relax.

“I imagine that they probably felt disorientated when they started to calm down and they didn’t have a solution as to how to find their way back home until they were caught.

“They probably would have known how to get back to the barracks and walked to that place if they were along their normal route. Horses are pretty good at recognising where they are,

“But in the heat of the moment, they quite possibly went off on a route they’d never been down before.”

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While a petition has now been created to retire the horses to a sanctuary following the incident, De Brauwere said that it is too early to say whether or not that will be necessary.

He admitted: “I can understand that people would think maybe the horses would want to put their feet up and retire as they may be traumatised from it, but it’s really too early to tell.

“I have no doubt that they will be in the best of hands.

“If they [recover physically and] can’t cope going back into a formal environment gradually, that’s when I think the decision can be made [that] they need to stop working.”

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“Our horses receive the highest standards of care, and those that did not undergo surgery are expected to return to duty in due course,” the British army said in a statement on Twitter (X).

“We want to thank everyone who has shown such kindness and concern towards our soldiers and horses. We will provide more updates soon.”

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An RSPCA spokesperson told The Independent: “We wish all the horses and people injured in this sad and shocking episode a very speedy recovery - particularly those which have undergone surgery.

“It’s heartening to see the deep levels of care and concern people have expressed for these horses and their riders.”