Puzzle 223

As for the horse named Marengo, legend has it that he was
captured during the Egyptian campaign, that Napoleon rode him
on all his famous campaigns from the second Italian campaign,
through the retreat from Moscow, to the final battle at Waterloo.
The horse reputedly was captured after that climatic battle and
taken to Britain, where he was put on exhibition and even today
his skeleton is on display in the National Army Museum.

Marengo was a sensation. Crowds pressed into the Waterloo
Rooms on Pall Mall to see the proud horse described on the
advertising handbills as "Bonaparte's White Barb Charger ...
favourite horse of the late Emperor". This small grey Arab
stallion, around 14 hands in height (he was called a Barb
because he was of Turkish origin), had accompanied his
master "through most of his battles," stated the bills and carried
the wounds to prove it: five scars and a bullet lodged in his tail.

Constant, Napoleon's valet, wrote that, "The Emperor mounted
a horse without grace ... and I believe that he would not have
always been very sturdy on the horse if we had not taken so
much care to give him only horses perfectly trained." On the
other hand, Ernst Otto Odeleben, more critical of Napoleon's
lack of equestrian skills said: "Napoleon rode like a butcher ...
whilst galloping, his body rolled backwards and forwards and
sideways, according to the speed of his horse.”

~Marengo: The Myth of Napoleon's Horse