Seven Army horses and six riders were on an exercise in Kensington in April 2024, to help them get used to traffic and other noises in the City.  Near Hyde Park Corner at 8.30am the horses were frightened by a slab of concrete being dropped by Builders.  Four Army personnel were thrown from their horses and five horses dashed off into rush hour traffic.  Three soldiers had non-life threatening injuries.

There were collisions with vehicles which caused injuries to some of the horses and one horse hit a cyclist who was injured and taken to hospital.  Two horses were eventually apprehended almost six miles away at Limehouse by Police officers.  That evening, all horses were being cared for by vets.

I later read that it was two or three months before the horses were considered fully fit to patrol again.

The Daily Mail article included the following photograph, which I used as the basis for my continuous line drawing of two of the horses.

Whenever I have drawn horses before, I have used the general shape and structure of the animal to provide the design and I have never included a rider.  

Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – Autumn Exhibition 2023

Colour Sequence on Continuous Line Drawing

Of course there are no riders this time because they had been thrown off, but I decided that it was important to include the saddle, harnesses etc.

Regarding adding colour to the drawing, in the painting at the top of the post, I decided to use the fact the one horse was black and the other white.  Having a dark background to the right highlights the white horse.  The blood on the white horse produced the Black, White and Red combination I have used several times before. 

It occurred to me that the impression was like portraying “A bat out of Hell”, which could reflect how these poor horses felt.

These two pictures are to be exhibited at the  Stainbeck Arts Club Annual Exhibition on Saturday 31 August 2024 at Chapel Allerton Methodist Centre, Leeds, LS7 4NB.  This is part of the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival.