Just having a look at this thread; what I remember as a kid was the bread and milkman's horses being dressed up with red and white ribbon on May Day. The milk carts were emptied at the dairy one side of town and the empty horse and carts were taken across town to the stables. The milkman would be standing up pulling on the reins while the horse would be at full gallop heading for the town centre cross rounds with a policeman on point duty. I always thought they were showing off, I later learned that the horses wanted to get back to the stables and short of tying them up nothing would stop them. The policeman would normally stop the traffic to allow the horse through. The old milkmen would tell me the horse tales. One was on his way back to the dairy when a woman waved to him he stopped and got off, the horse shot off to the dairy and cut the corner off where a boy was swinging round a lamppost, he lost his arm. They didn't like people feeding their horses, if a horse got a regular apple he would wait even if the woman was out, it was a bit of a game to get the horse moving again.