Horses dispatched to help control the crowd, as they frequently are whenever there are crowds. They don’t just exist for riots!
You referenced the BLM protests. Not the rioting that followed the death of Duggan in 2011. These are not the same. The 2011 riots received a similar response to that we have seen recently and for the same reason. To try to stop copy cat events. The causes were though completely different. Those in 2011 were the result of anger directed at the police who had shot Duggan. The recent ones were the result of political opportunism by right wing social media influencers.
en.wikipedia.org
That you, and others here, don’t believe me is just par for the course you play on. Which slopes so steeply to the right that nothing ever runs true.