In this video I think it's demonstrated incredibly powerfully what importance needs to be placed upon anti-horse tools.
The horses do the bulk of the work in creating space that allows the police line to tighten the noose here. Without them they never would have controlled these crowds with people on multiple sides of them. They could not have maintained control.
There must be simply and effective methods to spook these horses without causing a danger to them. Something that could be deployed that would make the riders tell their superiors "we can't deploy because the horses would be spooked by x".
Anyway. What are other people's thoughts here? Obviously this protest was unprepared for a fight (although several police have been hospitalised). What could small groups of 1-5 have done in the wider engagement to make things go differently?
More traffic lights.
Laser pointers possibly.
Closed ranks and a strong line with something like overlapping shields as horses won't charge a solid wall, but it takes a lot of determination and courage.
Honestly, a lot of solutions just aren't going to be very nice for the horse, but tripwires and fire have traditionally worked well.
Bolas