Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.

We're your weekly guide to the numbers all around us in the news and in life, and I'm Tim Harford.

This week we have some horses.

A lot of horses.

Yep, there we go. Great drum horses. horses. Yep, there we go.

Great drum horses making their way along to the horse guards parade.

So why all these horses? That is a question that listener Ian Nelson would like answered.

He was watching one of the most British spectacles imaginable,

Trooping the colour. Hundreds of soldiers in their finest ceremonial garb march

through the streets of London and around horse guards parade, a grand square in the heart of the

city overlooking St James's Park and surrounded by the imposing

facades of government.

It's a birthday party for the monarch and the tradition goes back for centuries. So here's Ian's question.

Whilst watching Trooping of the colour, someone told me that we were the only nation

in the world to have more horses in their army than tanks. Are they correct?

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