Mounted police

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Mounted police are police who patrol on horseback. They continue to serve in remote areas and in metropolitan areas where their day-to-day function may be largely picturesque or ceremonial, but they are also employed in crowd control. Mounted police may be employed for specialized duties ranging from patrol of parks and wilderness areas, where police cars would be impractical or noisome, to riot duty, where the horse serves to intimidate those whom it is desired to disperse through its larger size. For example, in the UK mounted police are most often seen at football matches.

A well-known mounted police force is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP now uses standard police methods and does not use any horses operationally. However, horses are used in the Musical Ride, a ceremonial RCMP pageant.

The U.S. Border Patrol had 205 horses as of 2005. Most of these are employed along the U.S.-Mexico border. In Arizona, these animals are fed special processed feed pellets so that their wastes do not spread non-native plants in the national parks and wildlife areas they patrol.[1]

1 Equipment
2 Gallery
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Equipment

Tack used by mounted police is largely similar to standard riding tack, with adaptations for police use. Synthetic saddle are often favored over those made of natural leather to reduce weight, important both because of long riding hours and because police officers must carry numerous articles of personal equipment. High-traction horseshoes made of specialty metals or fitted with rubber soles are typically used in place of standard steel horseshoes, which are prone to slip on pavement. Horses working in riot control wear facial armor.

[edit] Gallery

A Mounted Deputy Sheriff at Memorial Day parade in Ohio, USA.	A mounted police officer on duty in Montreal's Parc du Mont-Royal.	Mounted Toronto officers standing outside Queen's Park.	A mounted policewoman patrolling at a summer music festival in Helsinki, Finland.
Mounted riot police used to disperse a crowd during protests in Edinburgh, Scotland.	City of London Police Mounted Section officer.	Mounted Metropolitan Police officer outside Buckingham Palace, London.	Garda Síochána Mounted Unit.
Officer of Mounted Platoon, Poznań.	Swedish mounted police in riot gear.	Chennai City Mounted Police officers patrolling during a cricket match