The Bolshoi Ballet needed a horse for its production of Marius Petipa’s The Pharaoh’s Daughter at the Royal Opera House in London. They planned to bring one with them from home, but quarantine laws interfered. So they found an English horse to stand in, and that animal promptly injured itself. Finally, a local trick-rider provided one of his horses for the Bolshoi’s use, but the difficulties didn’t end there…