Charlie Lane, a horse expert and former commanding officer of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, said that if rape alarms went off ‘some horses will react more violently than others’. He added: ‘I would be distinctly uncomfortable about it. There is a risk that individual riders are going to fall off, there is a risk horses are going to be injured.’ Dr Debbie Marsden, an equine behaviour expert, said: ‘If a horse spooks, they all have their own way of reacting to it. They are likely to throw their heads up and/or leap to the side away from the object. If one horse reacts, it can cause a bit of a chain reaction. It could lead to an accident.’
Separately from the briefing from security sources, the MoS has independently discovered that the hard-Right English Constitution Party has used Twitter to urge supporters to protest at the Coronation, and ‘bring rape alarms’.