{"id":21811,"date":"2026-06-03T07:32:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/21811\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T07:32:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:32:01","slug":"horses-bolt-through-streets-of-rome-after-police-officer-lights-fireworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/21811\/","title":{"rendered":"Horses bolt through streets of Rome after police officer lights fireworks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4JNQ6OE_Screenshot_2026_06_01_073621_png.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"607\" alt=\"A horse runs loose through the Italian capital, Rome.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nA horse runs loose through the Italian capital, Rome.<br \/>\nPhoto: Lucio Virzi Fotografo \/ screenshot\n<\/p>\n<p>Fireworks set off without permission by a traffic police officer during a late-night parade rehearsal in Rome startled dozens of horses on Friday, sending them bolting through the capital and injuring several riders.<\/p>\n<p>The unexpected bangs caused panic among the ceremonial horses, some of which had riders while others were being led by hand, during preparations for Italy&#8217;s Republic Day parade taking place just before midnight, local time.<\/p>\n<p>About 35 horses fled onto the busy Via Cristoforo Colombo, where some drivers filmed them as they galloped down the road.<\/p>\n<p>The last horse was recovered at dawn about 14 kilometres from the scene.<\/p>\n<p>Several riders were thrown from their horses due to the incident, including a 22-year-old soldier who suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung but was not in a life-threatening condition.<\/p>\n<p>About 15 horses were also injured, but none were put down, police said.<\/p>\n<p>Mario De Sclavis, commander of Rome&#8217;s police force, told Sunday&#8217;s Corriere della Sera newspaper that the incident &#8220;discredits the image of the corps [police force] and its officers&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A horse runs loose through the Italian capital, Rome. Photo: Lucio Virzi Fotografo \/ screenshot Fireworks set off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12485,1189,36,8336,12484,12482,12483,27],"class_list":["post-21811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rome","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-rome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}