Horse Snit! Boston Herald's Headline Summarizes Police Horse Welfare Rumors

For the past few months, this blog and most everyone at Equisearch.com has turned a sympathetic ear to our four-legged friends at a beautiful old stable in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Tucked behind a hospital on the grounds of an old estate, a group of hard-working half-draft horses load up each day to patrol the city streets. Some days they catch a Red Sox game or a Boston Pops concert on the Charles River, and in the old days, they risked life and hoof at student protests and anti-busing riots. They always stood their ground.

The city of Boston has a heck of a way of thanking them for their 140 years of service.

This year's city budget drew a thick red line through the horses' hay and grain and other expenses, not to mention the officers' and barn staff's salaries. The oldest mounted police unit in the country will be shut down unless something is done in the next few days.

The city has been stunned by this news. The horses are icons that we are all used to seeing at events. The happiest and most solemn public moments in Boston history, we have shared with these horses. Patriot and Rex Sox and Celtic and Bruin games, playoffs and championship celebrations require horse patrols. So do state funerals, the Boston Marathon, the Pope's Mass on the Common, and the Fourth of July fireworks.

So great efforts have been made to hold hearings, start a non-profit support group, raise some money, and petition the police commissioner and mayor to re-consider. Find the money somewhere else.

But in the meantime, the horses have been officially or unofficially been for sale everywhere but on eBay, and I shouldn't say that because I haven't checked and they may well be there.

These fine, highly trained horses would be an asset to any city. So today, there I was in the long Saturday morning line in the grocery store and my eye fell on the front page of the newspaper.

Click here to read about the latest spat between Boston and New York. NYPD would like to buy some of the horses, though it appears some New Yawker made a comment that some of the Boston horses were undernourished. (If you could see these horses, you'd know that's a joke.)

The comment did not sit well and it made Front Page News here in Boston.

How dare they insult our horses at a time like this?

Boston is still not sure it wants to sell the horses or end the tradition. A last ditch City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at 2pm at City Hall City Council Chambers on the 5th floor.

And do you want to know the very worst part of this whole story? If those horses go to New York, they'll be working the Yankees games. Will Red Sox Nation let its horses go the way of Johnny Damon and Roger Clemens and (I dare not say his name) The Bambino Who Cursed Us (for 86 years, anyway)?

Stay tuned...and let's hope not. If you can help, email me and I will forward your email or go to the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54704243322, which now has over 3000 members!

Read more from The Jurga Report's coverage on the Boston Police Horse crisis:

March 19 report

March 20 report

April 9 report

Paul Revere Weeps: City of Boston Seeks Homes for Veteran Equine Officers

Tonight's news report from the New England Cable News Network sums up the shock and sadness in this city tonight as we learn that the Mayor plans to go ahead with the dissolution of the oldest mounted police unit in the United States.

Horses and humans lose their jobs sometime this summer.

These horses have stood watch over our famous World Series celebration riots, labor strikes, Pope visits, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial (and executions), Super Bowl victories, Larry Bird's NBA Championship years, JFK, the Big Dig, Civil War peace jubilees, anti-busing school desegregation demonstrations, the Ryder Cup, the Coconut Grove nightclub fire, two World Wars, the Tall Ships, several National Democratic Conventions, the Molasses Flood, student revolutions, The Great Boston Fire, the Boston Strangler, Fourth of July concerts with fireworks (they didn't flinch) on the banks of the Charles River, and over 100 Boston Marathons. And a whole lot more.

Next week will be their last Boston Marathon.

They even survived Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy and yes, even Mitt Romney.

The first official retirement home for horses in the USA was Red Acres Farm in Stow, Massachusetts, built so these horses would have a place to go. But, sadly, it's gone too.

I received the sad news today from Paula McVey Walsh, wife of one of the mounted officers you will see in the video. Thanks, Paula.

Save Boston's Police Horses!

by Fran Jurga | 19 March 2009 | The Jurga Report

Police horses took to the outfield to control angry crowds at Boston's Fenway Park during the 1912 World Series. The horses have served the city since 1873. Double-click on photo to see enlarged view; photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

They’re always there, whether it’s bobbing over the heads of the crowds outside a Red Sox game or with billowing sails behind them on a spring day on the Charles River. You hear them clip-clopping up and down the cobblestones in front of Paul Revere’s house and you see the familiar horse trailer parked in the strangest places downtown. And no one will ever forget the day that Boston Police horse fell down a manhole.

But everywhere you go in Boston lately, there’s a hushed tone of concern: “Did you hear about the police horses?” “How can they shut them down?” “The first horse I ever patted was one of those big guys!” and, most often comes the follow-up, “What can we do to save them?”

In a city that’s more like a town, and in a town where a horse is technically a “hoss”, there is outrage, indignation and an outpouring of support to keep the clip-clop on the city’s register of official sounds.

Horses have patrolled Boston streets since 1873. For many years the force favored Morgan-type horses but lately has bought and trained draft crosses that tower over crowds at events like the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl victory parades. Boston Police horses galloped onto the Fenway Park outfield when a riot erupted at the 1912 World Series.

But across the country, from Honolulu to Cincinnati, police horses have been menaced with the budget ax in the past few years, although Philadelphia’s new commissioner bucked the trend and pledged to bring back the disbanded mounted unit there.

Boston horse lovers are not letting their street-savvy steeds go without a fight. An online petition has been launched with plenty of room for your signature, whether you live in Boston or not.

Click here to go the petition to save the Boston Police Mounted Unit.

Click here for the “Save the Boston Police Mounted Unit” Facebook page, which already had 891 members when I wrote this post!

Supporters of the Boston Police Mounted Unit may also write to:
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis
Boston Police Headquarters
One Schroeder Place
Boston MA 02120

Or contact the office of Boston Mayor Thomas` Menino:
Email address: mayor@cityofboston.gov
Tel: 617.635.4500
Fax: 617.635.2851

Thanks to farrier Sean McClure for his help with this article.