Page 162 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
public took to their hearts. As the following extracts from the article, “The Horses that Wouldn’t Lie Down” by Graham Smith, for Soldier Magazine (September 1982), express:
“Three month’s countryside convalescence has been prescribed for Sefton, the Blues and Royals 19-year-old black gelding, who was viciously wounded in thirty- eight places by four-inch nails and metal shrapnel during the IRA car-bomb outrage in London when seven horses were killed and eight injured.
Now Sefton and seven of his injured stable mates are back home again – at the Royal Army Veterinary Corps Training Centre at Melton Mowbray where they took their first steps on their military careers.
Awaiting Sefton’s arrival at Melton Mowbray was a ‘get-well’ telegram from the eight switchboard girls at the five-star Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. Miss Rosemary Gates, the switchboard supervisor, told Soldier Magazine, “The horses go there regularly. We have had a reply to our telegram thanking us for our trouble in writing and sending gifts.”
Those gifts include pounds of Polo mints and fruit gums and Sefton is sharing them with his equine companions injured in the same terrible blast – Zaney, Quo, Minus, Salamander, Ringlet, Copenhagen, Eclipse and Bandit.
Colonel Keith Morgan-Jones, the RAVC Training Centre Commandant, said: “The horses may be back on parade by November, but we cannot make that prognosis for sure. Bits of tin are still coming out of them. The horses will be treated, and we will observe each of the wounds to make sure they heal up safely. Dressings are changed daily and administered with anti-fly powder.”
“Meanwhile, we will rest them to build up their condition and treat anything that is persistent. Normally, the horses come back here from London for rest and to get a breath of fresh air.”
Sefton, it is expected, will undergo twenty or so further X-rays but it is not thought necessary to operate on him or the other seven horses. “I think their bodies will work any remaining metal out. This is the natural process of a healthy body,” said Colonel Morgan-Jones.
Private Jimmy Clarke, a veterinary dresser, said: “I think they’ll all make it. I was appalled by their wounds but who wouldn’t be? They’ve all been looked after very well – before and after the bomb incident. You can’t find fault with the Household Cavalry in looking after their horses.”
After a Press photo-call, Zaney was “turned out” into a meadow where he immediately cantered over to a fence and a greeting from six young horses, all potential Drum Horses, in an adjoining field.
The other seven including Sefton – were not put into the field for fear that their cantering and possible
collisions with each other might open up their wounds. There are one hundred and fifty horses at any one time at the 350-acre RAVC Training Centre and the Corps, as a whole, has five hundred and fifty horses and thirteen
hundred dogs in world-wide service.
All of them get the very best treatment but none will
get closer or more devoted attention in the next few weeks than the survivors of the Hyde Park outrage – the horses that wouldn’t lie down.”3
A year after the bombing, Sefton became the focus of a book by former Officer of The Blues and Royals Mounted Squadron, JNP Watson. Sefton: The Story of a Cavalry Horse, was a heartfelt tribute to all the Household Cavalry horses who were killed and injured, the courage of their riders and the warmth and empathy of the British public who followed every stage of every horse’s recovery. In the media, it was Sefton who became the focal point for the public’s emotional outpouring for the victims of that day. Gifts and get-well cards were rained upon him. It was said that the publicity he received rivalled that accorded to the great Grand National winning racehorse Red Rum.
Mr Watson described Sefton as a loveable rogue, a ‘bit of a character’ who enjoyed a fair share of mischief with his rider, Trooper Michael Pedersen, who he regularly nipped, given the chance, during grooming sessions. No wonder that the horse gained the nickname “Sharky”! It was Sefton’s naughty streak that made him a favourite with fans young and old. He was a universal hero, a horse who survived against the odds and everyone wanted to see him and wish him well. And the same was true when he went into retirement in 1984.
After capturing the headlines and then the hearts of the nation, Sefton lived out a carefree retirement at Speen Farm, Home of Rest for Horses (re-named The Horse Trust in 2006) deep in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire where he had over 200 acres to call his back yard. He proved to be the most popular tourist attraction with thousands of admirers every year on a pilgrimage to seek out the inspirational black Cavalry horse with the distinctive white blaze and four white socks.
Still handsome, the twenty-one-year-old black, Irish gelding was something of a phenomenon having survived the nightmare battlefield scene of carnage in London that day – a chunk of metal had severed Sefton’s main neck artery, he lay grievously wounded on the road, stunned and wild-eyed. His sturdy frame had endured thirty-
3 Soldier Magazine 23rd August – 5th September 1982.
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