Inside the chaotic Household Cavalry stables

Churchill had his black dog tailing him around. I used to have black horses galloping through my head. They careered around out of control, rendering me so anxious that I couldn’t sleep the night before I was due to heave myself into the saddle as a civilian support rider for the Household Cavalry. So the sight of blood-spattered horses from the Household Regiment bolting through London this week dredged up some unwelcome memories.

For six months, I was a member of the coveted, informal club of civilians who got to exercise the horses of this exclusive regiment in Hyde Park. There’s no formal application process: you chat up an officer, go for a riding test, then turn up at Knightsbridge Barracks at 6 a.m. kitted out in tweed jacket, tie, breeches and boots, saddle one of the famous ‘Cav Blacks’ then head off along the park’s bridleway, Rotten Row, looking like something out of the Pony magazine annual from 1953.