What did the Trojan horse say to the soldiers inside?

This joke gallops into humor with a clever bit of wordplay, specifically a pun. The punchline hinges on the idiom "hold your horses," which means to slow down, wait, or be patient. However, in the context of the Trojan Horse (Review), it also literally refers to the soldiers needing to remain still and quiet inside the giant wooden horse. The humor comes from the double meaning, playing on both the figurative and literal interpretations of the phrase.

The historical context that makes this joke work is the famous tale of the Trojan Horse from Greek mythology. During the Trojan War, after a long and fruitless siege, the Greeks devised a cunning plan. They built a massive hollow wooden horse, hid their elite soldiers inside it, and presented it to the Trojans as a gift, pretending to sail away. The unsuspecting Trojans brought the horse inside their city walls, believing they had won.

Of course, once the horse was safely within the gates (Review) of Troy, the hidden Greek warriors emerged under the cover of night, opened the city gates for the rest of their army, and ultimately led to the fall of Troy. So, the idea of the horse telling the soldiers to "hold your horses" perfectly captures that tense moment of waiting for the opportune time to strike, making the pun both historically apt and delightfully funny.