South Yorkshire Police mounted officers bring home trophies from competition in Czech Republic

PCs Julie Bradshaw and Tracey Brown from the South Yorkshire Police’s (SYP) Mounted Department and Barnsley MOSOVO (Sexual and Violent Offender Manager) Officer Emma-Jo Thorpe, travelled to Brno in the Czech Republic to represent the UK and SYP at the ‘International Police Riding Competition’.

When they arrived there on Thursday June 8, it was literally straight in the saddle for PC Julie Bradshaw and Emma-Jo Thorpe, to meet with the horses each officer would be putting their trust into over the next couple of days.

Ms Thorpe was paired with Police Horse Concord, who was described by his Czech officer as a horse that is ‘like riding with the handbrake on’, he really needs required a lot of encouragement to keep moving.

Meanwhile, PC Bradshaw rode police horse Murphy, who was completely the opposite and a “speed demon”.

The day before the competition all horses and officers travelled to the city of Brno to parade through the town and meet the communities, with riders from Czech, UK, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia all taking part.

The competition was held on Saturday June 11 and consisted of two sections.

The first was a derby style course of 21 jumps, solid natural and show jumps, at a height of a metre.

The second was a police nuisance test which was named ‘Pakur’.

Officers had to demonstrate policing skills of shooting balloons, navigating bridges, using batons to strike objects while at speed and over jumps, jumping barrels and fire hoops, all within a set time.

In the first section, the derby, PC Bradshaw finished in second place and Ms Thorpe finished sixth out of 25 competitors.

In the second section, Ms Thorpe’s horse Concorde posted the quickest completion time of the competition and finished in second place and PC Bradshaw finished in 17th place.

An overall winner was decided through collective penalties from each section, and for Ms Thorpe’s ability and efforts she was presented with the ‘Best International Rider’ award.

Julie and Emma both entered a third section, non-compulsory and similar to a puissance where the jumps increase in size with each round.

Nine riders took part. Emma and Concorde cleared 1m 30cms and finished in third place and Julie and Murphy cleared 1m 50cms, scooping second place.

Emma said: “We are truly privileged to be invited to this competition, all the other competitors took their own horses to compete on, so we had the added level of difficulty of riding horses that were not used to our riding, or us of them.

“All horses no matter where in the world are trained in the same way, however horses are animals and all have their own quirks and ways.

“I feel extremely proud to have represented SYP and the UK at this championship competition and to be overall winner is just amazing.”

SYP Saddle club is generously supported by the SYP Sports and Social Club.

Ms Thorpe and PC Brown were also in action recently at the Royal Windsor Horse Show where they competed in front of the Royal family, also as part of the SYP Saddle Club.

The team were up against 29 other teams from across the country, including Household Cavalry, the Kings Troop, Royal Navy, Armed Forces and other police forces.

The officers, who compete on their own horses and in their own time, have attended the Royal Windsor Horse Show for a number of years.

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.

There are currently nine police horses and 12 riders stabled at Ring Farm in Cudworth, Barnsley where the SYP Mounted section is based.

Ring Farm is a former dairy farm that the police acquired in the 1980s and developed into the base for horses and mounted officers.

The unit was transferred to Wakefield for a couple of years before returning to Ring Farm in March 2018.

As well as competing and police work, the Mounted Section is present in the community and in May visited a care home in Sheffield to help horse loving resident, Lorna Kilha, celebrate her 105th birthday.