LONDON ( AP) — Prime Minister David Cameron stood before the world’s media today and finally admitted: Yes, he had ridden the horse.

News that the Metropolitan Police had entrusted a retired police horse named Raisa to former News International chief Rebekah Brooks and her horse- trainer husband Charlie provided light relief this week amid the phone hacking and bribery scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers.

Police have insisted the 22- year-old horse was not a gift to Brooks, who has since resigned her top media job and been arrested and questioned, but not charged, in the scandal.

But Cameron is a good friend of the couple, and questions about the horse pursued him all the way to a European summit.

“Before the election (in May 2010), yes, I did go riding” with Charlie Brooks, Cameron told a news conference in Brussels. “He has a number of horses and, yes, one of them was this former police horse Raisa, which I did ride.”

That would appear to violate the police department’s policy, spelled out on its website, which is that horses are retired to “homes where the horse will not be ridden.” The horse was later sent back to the police department and has since died.

During the week, Cameron’s staff had parried the horse questions with jokes or evasions, for which he apologized.

“I don’t think I will be getting back into the saddle any time soon,” Cameron said.

Whether Rebekah Brooks’ custody of the horse was improper, it touched on sensitive issues: the relationship between Murdoch’s British papers and the police, allegedly including bribery of officers and favoritism by the force, and the papers’ relationship with Cameron.

“The saga of the horse may seem trivial, “ said Tom Watson, a member of Parliament who has pursued allegations about criminality at Murdoch’s papers. “(However) it’s further evidence of the intensely close relationship between executives at News International and the Metropolitan Police.”

Murdoch himself leaped into the fray earlier in the week, tweeting: “ Now they are complaining about R Brooks saving an old horse from the glue factory!”

For cartoonists, the horse was irresistible.

The Guardian’s Steve Bell depicted Murdoch riding Cameron, with Rebekah Brooks’ severed head also on the prime minister’s back. Daily Telegraph cartoonist Matt had a horse testifying at the U.K. Leveson’s inquiry, admitting, “Yes, sugar lumps did change hands.”