In the Seville district of Mayfair, a formation of six horses and five officers from the Royal Cavalry lost control on the morning of July 1 while conducting routine training at Hyde Park in central London. The lead horse, which was being led by an officer instead of being ridden, was startled by the noise of a bus and broke free from its reins. This caused chaos on the streets of London as the two horses following behind threw off their officers and followed the lead horse out of formation.
One horse was successfully rounded up by police in South Eaton Place in Belgravia, while the other two continued on to Vauxhall Bridge before being intercepted. All three horses were returned to barracks safely at around 9.55am, with one horse suffering minor injuries but no officers being hurt. However, images and videos shared on social media showed at least one horse encountering a car during the raid.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it had worked with the military to locate the three horses during the raid. The British Ministry of Defence stated that all three horses were quickly and safely rounded up, but this contradicted what was seen in footage posted online. Despite this incident not being involved in a similar incident on April 24 in London, when five horses from the Royal Hussars broke away from their training formation after being startled by construction work noise and caused three accidents within 10 minutes, injuring four people. One horse crashed into a taxi and lost a lot of blood while another smashed the windshield of a tour bus. Three of those horses were returned to duty and took part in King Charles III’s birthday parade on June 15th, while two injured ones were sent for summer break before returning to service with Royal Hussars.
