Retired Household Cavalry horse dies aged 25

A retired horse from the Household Cavalry has died at the ripe age of age twenty-five.

Sefton retired to The Horst Trust’s “home of rest for horses” in Bucks in July 2005, the day after his last official engagement at The Queen’s Life Guard parade in Whitehall.

He was put down earlier this week (Tuesday 27 March) due to ill health.

“Sefton’s health went downhill rapidly and his quality of life was deeply compromised,” said The Horse Trust’s Shirley Abbott.

The gelding’s groom Kate Cutler said: “Towards the end he was not the Sefton I had come to know and love.

“He had lost that special twinkle in his eye.”

Sefton was named after the horse that suffered 37 wounds in the July 1982 Hyde Park bombing which claimed the lives of four soldiers and seven horses from The Household Cavalry.

The Horse Trust – founded in 1886 – provides a retreat for working horses that have served their country or community and nurtures them through their final years.

For more information visit www.horsetrust.org.uk

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