Galloping through both sides of history

A GROUP of county councillors is to ask the National Army Museum in London to repatriate — if that’s the right word — the skeleton of Napoleon’s charger Marengo.

The request is based on the long-held belief that the horse was bought at a horse fair in north Cork, though the venue is uncertain — Buttevant and Bartlemy dispute the honour, though neither can establish an authentic claim.

There is another version of the story — isn’t there always — that suggests Marengo was exported to France from Egypt in 1799 and that the grey Arabian was probably bred at the famous El Naseri Stud.