Who's going to ride your wild horses? Political trouble with horses, some of it apocryphal, goes back to the siege of Troy. Photograph: ANSA/Corbis
When horses get involved with politics, it usually seems to spell trouble. Eyes are focused at present on the revelation that David Cameron has finally recalled that he did ride Raisa – a horse lent to Rebekah Brooks by the Metropolitan police.
It's hardly the first time a nag has given a political leader trouble, though.
In the ancient world, even wooden horses could spell catastrophe. When the political leaders of Troy decided to let one into their city during a war with Greece, the decision quickly marked the end of their careers, and indeed their city as Greek troops spilled out and set about destroying it.
A century of two later, association with a flesh-and-blood horse did another ruler's reputation no favours. The Roman emperor Caligula supposedly ordered dignitaries to dine with his favoured horse Incitatus, which, his master's detractors claimed, ate oats mixed with gold. A promotion to the rank of consul was allegedly in the offing at one stage – and Caligula's polling ratings have barely recovered two millennia hence.
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