The good thing about being a horse is airline food is the same as your usual fare: it's hay.

Fourteen horses stepped off a Boeing 707 at Calgary International Airport yesterday bound for this week's Nationals at Spruce Meadows.

They had hay to munch and water to get them through the 12 1/2 hour flight.

The horses, from Europe, the U.S., Japan and Brazil, began their trip in Belgium and are the last to arrive in preparation for the Nationals, which go June 2-6.

Though they can't enjoy an in-flight movie, the horses fare better in a plane than a vehicle trailer, said Linda Southern-Heathcott, Spruce Meadows executive vice-president.

"Horses have a mechanism in their knee they can lock up and sleep standing up," she said, adding a bumpy car ride can hamper that and keep them from being rested.

Stallions and mares have to be kept apart on the flight, because, well, boys will be boys.

"They like checking out the girls," Southern-Heathcott said. "They just get a little rambunctious."

Also on board were 14 grooms and four riders, most notably four-time Olympian Eric Wauters from Belgium.

There was also the much-anticipated Mumu, the pinto from Brazil who stands at just 154 cm and was originally bought for half a banana.

"He used to pull a carriage in a slum in Rio de Janeiro," said his rider and part-owner, Carlos Ribas.

Two weeks ago Ribas and Mumu won the derby in Eindhoven, Netherlands.