[media-credit name=’RAY PFEIFFER/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Police officers on horseback are a given around the University of Wisconsin campus for special events, and if police officials have it their way, the city might be saddling up more officers to form a full-time cavalry.

With the successful implementation of mounted police on game days and at large events like Halloween, many police and city officials acknowledge their benefit but admit adding horses to the police department is not an easy task.

"Horses are expensive, but there's a lot of value to them," Madison Police Department Sgt. Emil Quast said. "It's a huge undertaking. It's not like, 'Gee, does anyone have a horse they want to bring to work?' It's not that simple."

Quast is currently the only mounted officer at the MPD and has been heading a pilot program at the department to train horses and determine a possible future for a full-time unit in Madison. His position will be filled by another officer after his anticipated retirement this year, he said, but his hope is that the unit can eventually expand beyond one officer.

Currently, the MPD is looking at two options to increase the mounted unit: having officers own horses independently for police work or purchasing horses to be owned by the police department as a whole.

The MPD's mounted unit, since the early 1990s at least, has been very small and has relied on officers who own horses to use them for work; but this option, while less expensive, also has its drawbacks, Quast said.

"There's a little thing there called liability and public safety," he said. "And it's only one out of a thousand horses that can become police horses."

He went on to say that not every officer's personal horse is necessarily capable of becoming a police horse, and if the department was to use an unfit horse for duty, the safety risk could go up.

"If the departments own their own horses, they control all of the training and the liability issues are a lot less," Quast said. "But it's pretty expensive — it's a budget item. We're looking at both options."

George Twigg, spokesperson for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said the city is awaiting a proposal from the MPD before any decision can be made about expanding the mounted unit but also acknowledged the success of police on horseback at recent city events.

"It's something we saw the benefits of, most recently, at Halloween," Twigg said. "And in larger cities across the country, … [mounted units] are often used in entertainment districts."

Asked if the funding for the equestrian expansion could be worked into the city's budget, Twigg said, "We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it."

Trotting down campus town
While the MPD employs only one mounted officer, the city makes use of several other equestrian resources for patrolling at large Madison events.

The UW Police Department is one such resource, though that department also currently employs just one mounted officer.

Sgt. Kari Sasso, the solo officer, is also the coordinator of the UWPD mounted police unit, which works in conjunction with other police departments from Dane County and around the state to perform duties on campus.

The main events where the mounted officers make their appearances are Badger home football games, where the officers patrol Camp Randall aiding in crowd control, arrests, ejections and escorting ambulances and other vehicles.

"We're dispatched just like a patrol vehicle," Sasso said. "I think the horses can do more things than any other tool we have."

Patrick Fennessy, a mounted officer with the State Capitol Police, expressed similar sentiments, saying increased visibility is only the beginning of the benefits to mounted police.

The State Capitol Police work mostly out of State Fair Park in Milwaukee, but travel to different parts of the state for major events, including Halloween in Madison.

Fennessy attested to the benefits of mounted police at such events, especially noting this year's Halloween celebration as a marked victory for the city and all members involved in the plan.

"I got hit by a pumpkin this year, and you'll get hit with beer cans and cups and (things like) that," he said. "That will happen, but there's far more positive aspects than negative."

One of the major benefits, he said, is getting to interact with the partygoers. This year especially, the police on hand at Halloween mingled and posed for pictures with the crowds; the State Capitol Police even handed out trading cards depicting them and their horses.

It is that kind of interaction a horse will attract, Fennessy said, that really makes the job worthwhile.

"Ten years ago, I gave a horse card to a young girl, and she just came up to me this past year … and said she still has my card up on her bulletin board at her parents' house. And she's 20 now," Fennessy recalled. "That is one of my best memories."

Police officers on horseback bring great public relations, he said, and according to Quast, that could play a role in getting a full-time unit in Madison.

"I think the likelihood is really good," Quast said. "Everybody likes a horse."

And beyond that, their success at Halloween for the past three years cannot go unnoticed, he added.

"In the three years, no one has been stepped on or bitten by a horse," he said. "And those conditions are really trying for a horse."

Training
Adding mounted officers to the city's police department may be more than just a budgetary issue, as the training involved for both horses and officers is neither short nor easy.

According to Mary Hamilton, UW alumna and current owner of Riders Elite Academy in Minnesota, extensive training is imperative in getting the officers and their horses ready to patrol in an urban setting.

"You're taking a horse into a very strange environment," she said. "It takes a lot of skill to get your horse to be calm."

In getting a horse prepared for police duty, Hamilton said the very first thing she does is spend a month riding the horse to make sure there are no holes in its fundamental training. Only then does she move on to confidence-building courses, getting the horse to trust the rider.

The certification course — the next step in the training process — takes five weeks. There, the officers learn techniques including how to handcuff on a horse, what the proper position is when approaching a vehicle and methods of crowd dispersal.

And this whole training process cannot be done with just any horse, Hamilton added. A naturally calm demeanor in a horse is necessary for its future in a police unit.

But still, as UWPD's Sasso pointed out, even the most well-behaved horses need training to combat the animals' natural instinct to flee contentious situations, which is why it is important to expose the horses to things like tarps and marching bands — things the animals are normally terrified of.

"A horse's instinct in saving itself is flight," Sasso said. "So the natural instinct when it sees a marching band coming is 'Bye, see you later.'"

Sasso heads monthly training for mounted police officers, aimed at preparing both horse and officer for whatever situation might arise.

Hamilton, Fennessy and Quast all mentioned particularly stressful situations their horses had to handle — including an unruly crowd squirting urine-filled Super Soakers and one partygoer putting a cigarette out on a horse's leg — but added those obstacles are bound to come up and make use of the horses' training.

The amount of training is worth it in the long run for the benefits a police horse brings to a unit, Quast said.

"The biggest [benefit] is visibility," he said. "People tend not to do dumb stuff when they know a cop is around. And even if the [mounted] cop is a block away, people can see him."

As for the possibility Madison will see police on horseback patrolling the streets on any given weekend as a full-time unit: According to Quast, he's "hopeful."