Cassius calls it a day, leading the way on final journey

Meet Cassius, the 18-year-old handsome black horse who bowed out of his military career in the King’s Troop, Royal House Artillery by drawing the Queen’s lead-lined oak coffin.

Cassius leads a rehearsal of the procession. Picture: PA

Meet Cassius, the 18-year-old handsome black horse who bowed out of his military career in the King’s Troop, Royal House Artillery by drawing the Queen’s lead-lined oak coffin, topped with the Imperial Crown, from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster overnight (AEST).

Cassius, the strong but calm-natured horse, was due to take the front-left position – the No. 1 ­designation – in drawing the gun carriage for the 38-minute procession.

Tom Jenks, 30, who was to ride Cassius and oversee the “gun team”, said Cassius also participated in Margaret Thatcher’s 2013 funeral.

“He’s retiring after this parade. He was not kept on especially, but he was kept because we couldn’t retire him until we had another horse of his establishment to be able to replace him,” Sergeant Jenks said. “It’s quite fitting that he gets to retire doing this job.”

The horses have undergone years of training to adapt to various crowd situations, from loud roars to the waving of flags and throwing of flowers at such state occasions.

“The horses go through preparations and training, so they get taken away after we’ve been training for our normal daily routines,’’ Sergeant Jenks said. “They get ­exposure to loud noises, crowds, flags, flowers, people sobbing, even to the point of banging lots of drums and making aggressive noises.”

The biggest problem for the horses is moving at such a slow pace for a procession.

“They’ve struggled to slow them down” said Sergeant Jenks, adding ”and it’s quite a tall order to ask them to walk at a slow-march pace”.

Just last week, many of the ­horses in the parade had been ­enjoying some summer leave in Norfolk. The Troop had performed for the Queen at one of her favourite engagements, the Royal Windsor Horse Show, as part of the Platinum Jubilee celebration.

Christopher Ghika, of the Household Division, is responsible for organising the ceremonial aspects and the military bands, which play funeral marches composed by Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Chopin. He described participating in the procession as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”.

“It’s a very sad day, but it’s our last opportunity to do our duty for the Queen and it’s our first opportunity to do it for the King, and that makes us all very proud,” he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Burcham, who was a pianist on board the royal yacht Britannia in the 1990s, conducted the Royal ­Marines band.