The people of England, a country that will become America’s sworn enemy if Mitt Romney is elected American CEO, are having a spot of fun with Ann Romney’s not in the least elitist hobbyhorse.

Under the headline:

Ann Romney’s horse fails to win dressage but avoids offending British

Short of mocking Shetland ponies over their lack of stature or laying into zebras for their failure to make a significant contribution to the world of equine culture, Ann Romney’s horse Rafalca was always going to struggle to match the sheer incredulity that her husband managed to provoke on his recent overseas trip.

And in the event – the event in question being the individual dressage – the 15-year-old bay Oldenburg mare acquitted herself rather well. True, she and her rider, Jan Ebeling, may have been left well behind by Britain’s Carl Hester, Germany’s Dorothee Schneider and Denmark’s Anna Kasprzak but, by Romney standards, her performance was a positive triumph.

Never for a second during her seven-minute performance did a hoof stray dangerously mouthwards, nor did she do anything at all to offend or upset the host nation. From the moment she entered the Greenwich Park equestrian arena at 12.15 on Thursday afternoon, the most famous political horse since Caligula toyed with making a consul of Incitatus seemed in her element.

Much like their American cousins, the more the people of Jollye Olde Englande see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him.