Mounted police galloping in style on city roads

When we think of the city’s mounted police, we usually imagine them having a very limited role. We see them only as crowd controllers at Eden Gardens, Maidan or Raj Bhavan. But very few of us are aware of the history or legacy of this particular department of Kolkata Police — that has been in continuous action since 1840. As we have always celebrated the valour of the Kolkata police, we couldn’t ignore the contribution of the mounted police as a heritage department of the constabulary.
According to a senior officer, who has spent 20 years in the department, mounted police’s training has always been different from other departments.It is said a police horse is trained in such a way that it won’t hurt a human even in the tensest of situations. “The horse will only push men away with its buttocks, and being such a tall animal, people feel scared of it naturally,” the veterinary doctor of the department told us.
Earlier, most horses used to be bought from England or Australia. Now, in order to make the department more cost effective, the horses are bought from farms of Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Haryana and Punjab. “The average price for a single horse is `2 lakh. We also get huge support from trainers and managers of the Royal Calcutta Turf Club. They gift us a lot of horses after their racing careers are over. I think the last time we bought horses from outside was 10 years ago,” said an officer, adding, “We had also bred 7 horses here in the police stable itself. I remember the commissioner of police had given them names and a gala ceremony was arranged.”
Supratim Sarkar, Joint Commissioner of Police, Headquarters, told us, “The mounted police is a heritage department of KP. We are very proud of it as they has always done very well in managing even the most crowded processions, ceremonies or gatherings. During British rule, the mounted police used to maintain law and order across the city and also regulate traffic. Now that we have become more organised, mounted police has its own set of duties — which they perform very efficiently.”

While the total number of sanctioned horses with the mounted police is 98, currently there are 68 horses working for the department among which five are condemned horses
Each and every horse has to go through a strict veterinary examination
Horses as young as 5 years are taken into the department
There are total 170 employees working with the mounted police
Horses that come as gifts from the race course are trained for six months in order to condition the temperament of the horse
A mounted police horse’s height should be at least be 16 hands

It is a common perception that horses do not sleep. However, we were told that horses sleep and even snore if you set a straw bed for them
The mounted police station and stable on SN Banerjee Road has a huge sand tub placed. “After exercise, if you bring the horse here, it will lie down and start rolling on the floor like an infant. It is a stress buster. Also, the sand soaks up the sweat from their bodies,” said the official veterinary doctor of mounted police
Till 1965, all mounted police horses used to be brought from Australia and England. Nowadays, most horses are brought from Haryana, Punjab, Saharanpur, Pune and Delhi

Tollywood has taken help from this department several times. From actors training on a police horse to a horse being used in movies, mounted police has always been on good terms with the industry
Aishwariya Rai rode Rupmati, a mounted police horse in
Dev trained on Pritilata, another police horse, for his movie , though the horse he rode in the movie was a different one
Kaushik Sen and Abir Chatterjee trained on Priyadarshini for
Koel Mullick rode Rupmati in the movie