Let’s be honest — 2025 has been a rocky ride so far. The world feels like it’s been thrown in a tumble dryer, your banker in Race 5 finished somewhere near the town mall, and every second headline truly is fake news.
If you’ve found yourself sighing more than smiling lately, you’re not alone.
Illustration purposes only (Pic – Adobe Free Stock)
To bring a bit of relief from the madness, we’ve compiled a few unusual stories from the weird and wonderful world of horses and horseracing. They’re the kind of stories that remind us that horses have been revered for centuries, and that the sport of kings isn’t just about odds and betting coups.
It’s full of characters, chaos, and the occasional laugh-out-loud moment. Think of it as a little mid-year tonic with no side effects, except maybe a smile.
To start, we trot all the way back to the Roman Empire, sometime between 37 and 41 AD. The ruler at the time was Caligula, a man widely regarded as a stark-raving lunatic.
But if he had one redeeming quality, it was his love of horses. Chief among them was Incitatus, a prized racehorse who lived in royal luxury, was stabled at the palace and treated like nobility.
Artists depiction of Emperor Caligula and his horse, Incitatus (Pic – For The Love Of Horses)
Caligula’s affection for Incitatus went well beyond the usual brush and carrot. He reportedly rode him to royal banquets, gave him a place at the Emperor’s table, and fed him oats sprinkled with gold flakes.
Not stopping there, Caligula planned to appoint Incitatus to the Roman Senate. He even intended to make him the figurehead of his very own cult.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view of equine politics), Caligula was assassinated by members of his inner circle before the Senate got its first four-legged member.
Carvings on Whitehorse Hill (Pic – cdn.britannica.com)
Next, we gallop back about 3,000 years, to something straight out of the History Channel’s documentary series, ‘Ancient Aliens’. On the upper slopes of Whitehorse Hill in Oxfordshire, England, you’ll find enormous chalk carvings of horses—some stretching hundreds of feet long—cut into the earth and filled with gleaming white chalk. The most famous of these is the Uffington White Horse, believed to have been created sometime between 1380 and 550 BC, during the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age.
These striking figures require constant upkeep. A few times a year, volunteers with the UK’s National Trust scrape back the invading grass and refresh the chalk to keep the horses visible.
What’s truly fascinating, though, is that these carvings are best appreciated from above—yet when they were made, there was no such thing as an aerial view. Well… not officially, anyway.
We shake the reins and head into the 20th century, where horse racing had taken off in Ghana. Brought in by British colonial officials, it quickly became a hit. Everyone from the country’s elite to ordinary punters got hooked on the thrill and the betting.
In Accra, the capital, a racecourse was built with one big problem: a nasty bend that had already claimed the lives of at least 11 jockeys. No one could say for sure if it was bad track design or not enough proper training, but either way, it was deadly.
Then in 1966, the jockeys had had enough. Before one meeting, they refused to ride unless a traditional cleansing ritual was done to protect them. They asked for a cow to be sacrificed at the bend to ward off bad spirits. The officials said no. The jockeys went on strike. And the public backed them.
In the end, the sacrifice went ahead. It is not known whether any further incidents occurred after the cleansing.
Click on the image below to read the full story…
