Nearly everyone looks their best on horseback, George Orwell maintained in Burmese Days. Nearly everyone (perhaps someone should memo Vladimir Putin before he unbuttons his shirt and goes cantering off into the Urals again for the 2020 Kremlin calendar). But you don't need that caveat with canals: because every inland waterway looks better horsed-up. It's the reason horse-drawn trip-boats invariably get voted the winning subjects of canal-themed photo competitions, or why stocky ponies pulling working boats of yore still make such popular paintings on restoration society Christmas cards. The scenes speak of something romantic and timeless. Yet the bigger picture is altogether less rosy - because time might just, in fact, be running out for the boat horse.
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