When military horses caused pandemonium on London streets

TUNDE OYEDOYIN  

Tunde Oyedoyin is a London-based personal finance coach and founder of Money Intelligence Coaching Academy, a specialist academy of personal finance. He can be reached as follows: +447846089587 (WhatsApp only); E-mail: tu5oyed@gmail.com

Life can sometimes be as brutal as a boxing contest. The unexpected may happen along the road and you can be knocked down. Here’s the thing. You can get up like Tyson Fury did when Francis Ngannou nearly rained on his parade during what was meant to be a half day at the office during his warm up fight against the Cameroonian in October of last year.

However, rather than get up and fight on and figure out things like the recently dethroned World Boxing Council, WBC champion did in Saudi Arabia, many people take flight and run. By the way, our context here as always is personal finance. Taking flight or running away in this context means staying down, loss of investments, broke, being on ground zero and barely surviving. You may even be bankrupt. Like Marvin Gaye famously sang, now “let’s get it on.” Just thought to underline that. Here we go.

Wednesday, April 24th is a day that’ll probably linger in the memory of many Londoners for a long time, especially those living and working around Buckingham Palace Road, Belgravia and Victoria station and the environs.

That morning, five out of a group of seven military horses taking part in a training exercise around Belgravia got spooked. That caused them to break loose and throw off their riders. The horses then galloped through the streets, as terrified pedestrians took cover. According to the Metro Newspaper of Friday, April 26 (p.5), four “Household Cavalry soldiers” were injured in the process. Wishing them speedy recovery.

One of the memorable images that yours truly saw on ITV in their six o’clock news in the evening of that day was of one of the horses, Vida, bloodied and galloping away as if running for her life. Perhaps she was the one that smashed into a double decker tour bus and taxi. Thankfully, all the five were eventually rounded up. Vida and another, Quaker, were among the horses that later underwent surgery. Wishing Vida and the others speedy recovery as well.

But what’s in it for us? Why did the horses abandon their exercise and run? What made them cause the katakata (pandemonium)? What made them throw off those soldiers and to charge through the streets, driving the fear of God into people?

While watching the thing on ITV news, a horse expert that was interviewed that night said what spooked the horses was the unfamiliar noise of the building work being carried out nearby. She explained that the type of noise coming from the construction site was different to the sound that the horses were used to and had been trained for. That, she said, caused fear in the animals and consequently, made them go into flight mode immediately.

You can’t blame the animals. As the expert said, they had not been conditioned or trained to hear that type of noise that emanates from a building site. Hopefully, the Household of Cavalry regiment would have by now started simulating that unfamiliar noise in training the horses.

The takeaway for us is to not run as the horses did. Like Vida, who got bloodied while running in fear, taking flight instead of thinking rationally and fighting could even lead to disaster. It’s not unheard of that people with money problems develop health issues.

Perhaps, it’s time to fight. Setting financial goals and taking “tiny steps” may be helpful. Pressing the ‘reset’ button isn’t bad either. Here’s the thing. Don’t let the unexpected run you out of town. Wake up. Get up and let’s get it on, as Gaye sang.

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