Meet South Yorkshire Police's horses who make police work approachable

There are 43 police forces across England and Wales and 11 of those have a mounted section.

South Yorkshire Police’s Mounted Section is one of those and was established, records would suggest, in the early 1900s.

A leather bound book in an office in Cudworth in Barnsley where the force’s police horses are based, reveals that it bought its first police horse, when it was Sheffield City Police, on September 30, 1904 for £9.

He was four years-old at the time, stood at 18 hands and was called Captain.

The basic requirements for when the force is seeking a new horse don’t seem to have altered much over the next hundred or so years.

There are currently 10 police horses and 12 riders stabled at Ring Farm, a former dairy farm that the police acquired in the 1980s.

When the police need a new horse they are looking for a horse that is around four years-old as they have life and ridden experience and are 16 to 18 hands high.

Horses are sourced from adverts in The Yorkshire Post, dealers or word of mouth and private owners – such as was the case with latest recruit Sully (known under his police name as PH Wortley).

He is undergoing the same on loan four week training programme that all potential new police horses undergo and when a horse is presented to police it will act in one of three ways says yard manager PC Dave Driver.

He says they either look at something, get spooked and run away, they look at something and show interest and await instruction or are totally oblivious to danger.

PC Driver said: “We are looking for the middle one every time. In four weeks we can tell. We have had horses come in and are police horses from being born, nothing seems to faze them, some take longer and we have one who has been here two years and is finding his feet. We had one who did everything right until the last day and threw one of our most experienced trainers so he had to go back.”

New horses are introduced to walking on the Trans Pennine Trail, then into the village centre of Cudworth, then past a school with noisy children, then they will walk to Barnsley town centre.

After that they are introduced to a city centre, then they will do a night patrol and then to public events such as a football match where they will observe.

Quite often the new horses are paired with those that are old pros.

PC Driver said: “They all do all jobs but some are better suited. Billy (PH Brinsworth) is 19 and has done absolutely everything, including The Olympics. He is the go to.

"Because they are a pack animal the older horses give comfort to the younger ones. We try and pair them so if one horse is more comfortable with something it will bring the other one forward.”

There is also room for each horse’s own personality to come out regardless of whether they are a dab hand at police work or not.

PC Driver added: “We did have one horse called Dennis. There was someone repairing the fences and they were happy to work with him in the field.

"He went to their van and took their tools and ran off down the field with them. They went to retrieve the tools and left the van doors open and while they were getting the tools, Dennis took their food from the van seat.”

They are also taught to jump up to 90cms and are gradually trained to be around flags and smoke bombs for dealing with public disorder – which is a big part of the work of a police horse.

One horse is said to be the equivalent of ten police officers on foot and 40 officers are needed to clear a street during a public order incident but the same can be achieved with four officers.

PC Driver said: “Our day to day job and what we do most of the time is high profile, high visibility public reassurance patrols in all towns and city centres.

“In Eastwood, Rotherham there was a big drug problem and we go in and people wait until we are on the street and come and stroke the horses and end up giving us information – it is a more personable approach.

"We are not going in with blue lights and from one job to the other in a rush, we have time to spend in an area.

"But people think we don’t get off the horse – we arrest and we stop and search. We are an iron fist in a velvet glove.”