My kingdom for a horse

Betting is a fool's game, so they say, and horse-racing the sport of kings. Would it take a foolish king to bet on the outcome of a horse-race? LATW considers it a possibility and turns to history to make it's case.

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" Surrounded by his enemies and without the fashionable mode of transport, LATW can only conclude that Richard III was a wee bit rash in his very generous offer of his kingdom in exchange for an animal, albeit a very grand, majestic one, worthy of a king. Such statements in times of turmoil must be closely monitored, for a brief look at any legal textbook will tell you that Richard's statement was actually legally binding (under section 29.8.5iv of the British Constitution: "Statements uttered during the course of hand-to-hand combat on a muddy field") and thus any infantryman could have legally accepted the trade for one horse (saddle not included). Given the circumstances, Richard must have known his fate and therefore cared little for earthly possessions, but even so, due care and attention must be paid in such matters to ensure next of kin do not have any wranglings with would-be opportunists contesting the will.

It is perhaps wrong of LATW to label Richard III mad for his wish to obtain a horse in his greatest hour of need, for horses are truly magnificent creatures: their strength, power, fabulous good looks and variety of shapes and sizes make them the ideal accompaniment to any royal occasion and/or gathering. That they are measured in hands is not only a well-known fact, but also a slightly worrying one, for it suggests an affinity betwixt man and animal that verges on the unhealthy, both in terms of the preservation of bodily-health and the nature of relationship between man and horse. Whoever would have thought to measure a horse in hands? The answer is a person that admires the strength of a horse just a little bit too much, and thus cleverly devised a justifiable reason for letting their hands run admiringly over what must be, by now, a worried animal. The unhealthy nature of the relationship between man with interesting feeling towards animal (masquerading as a means of judging "height") and their physical health, therefore, soon becomes clear, for no horse LATW knows of would put up with that sort of behaviour for long before giving the hind legs a bit of a twitch in a "get off me" sort of a way. (Not that LATW is familiar with animals, you will understand).

Perhaps this attitude to horses is not unusual, but do consider for a second how many other animals are deserving of their own scale of measurement. Cats aren't measured by owners in terms of the number of regular strokes required per tail-length; fish aren't measured in terms of number of body-lengths per aquarium; hamsters and guinea-pigs are not measured in terms of 8-year-old finger lengths, all reflecting a perfectly normal relationship between owners and animals. Why horse-owners have to revert to hands-on relationships is beyond LATW.

And yet, perhaps it is their perseverance to the task in hand that affords horses such special attention from their owners. Picture the scene: the horse and rider are making their way around the racetrack, seeking the glory of winning the race and securing the plaudits that go with it for the affectionate owner and stable, only for the horse to fall at the penultimate hurdle. The horse - realising the importance of the event - immediately resumes it's running and runs on to the finishing line, regardless of the fact it has no rider on it's back, all in a bid, you feel, to please the owner and justify all that special care and attention. The rider, on the other hand, does nothing: they just get up and trudge back to the jockey's room. LATW has to ask: where is the commitment in that? There is no drive for victory, no desire to be the best in that, despite being under eight stone and wearing aerodynamic gear which would allow such sprinting to be readily achievable. No: the jockey simply exhibits themselves to be a free-loader, getting a free-ride from the real star of the show and so, perhaps, for that, the horse deserves as much hands-on as it wants.

Perhaps that was what Richard III had in mind at the time of his legally binding offer.