Fascinating post by chrislock and thanks to

The true war horses were the unsung hero's of the British gun and transport teams. In this they were were not as lucky as War Horse David. The remains of 3 horses being found during work around the Menin Gate. There was a lot of road works going on when I was there a few weeks ago.

Whilst attempting to walk past the Menin Gate Memorial building site today, I realised a crowd had gathered around a trench outside of the memorial who were clearly involved in much discussion in flemish dialect. My learned Dutch was simply not good enough to cope with this however, I could pull out some and more but what caught my eye amazed me. On the floor in front of me were horse jaws, scattered teeth, femurs, ribs, spinal joints etc.

It came to be that during the morning's dig, 3 war horses had been discovered buried in what was believed to be a shell crater burial right in front of the Menin Gate Memorial itself. The horses were still wearing some tack and were all beileved to be British shoed but some had limbs missing.

The horse bones and tack were recovered and taken away in crates for cleaning and future display probably in the IFM according to the local archeologists who were embedded with the workmen.

The few remains I saw were the last to be taken away with the majority having already been removed. The archeologists were originally there to record and photograph the 14th century ramparts which had been exposed and the concensus being, that the horses were part of or a British gun/transport team caught out by shell burst and then pushed into a shell crater for burial.

Chris

Source: War horses found during dig at the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, 20/6/12