In Kingdom of Tabloids, Headlines for a Horse

It was a story that London’s scandal-hungry tabloids, reeling for months from the scandal in their own backyard, could scarcely have dreamed up: Scotland Yard lending a retired police horse to the editor of one of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers at a time when the Murdoch tabloids were under investigation for the illegal phone hacking that has shaken Scotland Yard and the Murdoch papers to the core.

It now appears to have been an innocent act of animal welfare, but celebrities and their animals are traditionally strong tabloid fodder, and the tale of Rebekah Brooks’s horse proved irresistible, leading broadcast news bulletins and online news Web sites in Britain. Still, at first blush, the loan of the horse seemed to have a darker side, offering a new exhibit, the horse, to illustrate the once-cozy ties between the Murdoch papers and the police that have formed the backdrop to the scandals.