Royal wedding: love and marriage go together … like a horse and carriage

Never mind Santa's sleigh, the really big deal in the four-legged community is which one gets to pull Wills and Kate's carriage

Carriage restorer Dave Evans cleans the Glass Coach, which may or may not carry William and Kate to the royal wedding. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/AP

• We begin with the most satisfying flick through royal jazz mag Majesty, which includes a hilariously esoteric six-page feature on which coach will take William and Kate from Westminster Abbey to the Buckingham Palace reception. Majesty can't be sure – it suspects the Glass Coach, but includes pictures of the 1902 State Landau and the Irish State Coach just in case – though I can tell you that all units come with side-impact heraldry and men in tights as standard.

• Of more electrifying interest, however, is the question of who will draw the coaches. Majesty states that there are 10 Windsor Greys among the 34 horses in the Royal Mews – "including the spirited Jason and Claudia" – but the identity of those who will be harnessed to William and Kate's carriage remains tantalisingly obscure.

Well. I don't need to tell you that within the ungulate community this is the big one. Forget the job of pulling Santa's sleigh, which – let's face it – comes round every year. Getting the nod for a royal wedding basically sets up the lucky horse for life. The chosen ones may not all be made consuls, but they can certainly expect non-executive directorships of one of the better banks and a permanent invitation to Bilderberg gatherings.

So which is the best of the best? Which horses are going to be the equine equivalent of Top Gun? A call to Clarence House finds a spokeswoman insisting the identities of the animals will be released only the day before the wedding. But what about understudies, Lost in Royalbiz inquires? Because as you'll recall in Top Gun, Maverick and Goose get the call only because first-choice Cougar has a meltdown somewhere over the Pacific. If Jason, for argument's sake, goes to pieces in rehearsals, then maybe a couple of other brash young punks are going to get bumped up – with thrilling consequences.

There is a stifled giggle on the line. "I don't think that would happen," comes the eventual reply. "These horses are highly trained." So was Cougar! But when that Russian MiG comes at him, the thought of his wife and kid just destroys his nerve. "Erm … If one of them went lame or something, then a stand-in would be put in … [further giggles] This might be one for Buckingham Palace, but I don't think they'll be drawn any further than I have been." It's classified. Say no more.

• Speaking of Majesty, Friday's edition of our regular feature Know Your Pundits will showcase the magazine's editor, Ingrid Seward. "You aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer," as Mark Twain once observed – and we shall have cause to ask what better way to go than aiming for the Palace and drowning in the tidal wave of expertise excreted by Ms Seward at this happy time for our nation.

• Many thanks, meanwhile, to all those who got in touch to say that Kathy Lette's well-flogged pun about the cream of British society – "rich, thick and prone to whipping" – also starred in a recent article she wrote about Liz Hurley and Shane Warne. Further research suggests it made its debut in a 2005 article in which Kathy observed that Prince Charles's wedding to Camilla created a vacancy for a mistress, a post for which the wry novelist volunteered.

As for when we can expect it to make its next appearance, the pun is now believed to have its own agent and will be available for hire on the big day to whichever national or international broadcaster tenders the biggest bid.

But please, no sniping. I think it was Victor Lewis-Smith who observed of recycled material that no one ever complained when Sinatra sang My Way again – and I urge you to place Kathy's whipped cream shtick in the same bracket. Ditto my own weakness for spotlighting Kathy Lette puns, which is indulged near-fortnightly.

• Finally, an answer to the question "what does a meritocracy look like?" And that answer is: erstwhile Gordon the Gopher sidekick Phillip Schofield anchoring ITV's Royal Wedding coverage. Come to that, it's Fearne Cotton on the BBC, doubtless bringing the same deft touch to the event that she brings to the Brits. (Sample inquiry: "Muse! Do you agree that you're the best live act, because I do!")

Yes, you may consider the class struggle officially OVAH, as that previously immutable law of British broadcasting has been broken: the statute ruling that all big-occasion anchor duties were essentially hereditary and should fall to a Dimbleby brother. How the brothers will spend the day is unclear – perhaps commiserating with the preposterously titled ex-King Constantine of Greece – but as a much-loved institution that provides a sense of continuity in our X Factor world, they are encouraged to emerge at least fleetingly to acknowledge the crowds.

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