Often visited by royals including Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall and Zara Tindall, Imber Court is home to the force’s horses in training and on rest before being placed with one of many branches around London and the south.
The yard which can stable 51 horses, has an indoor school, horse walker, own farriery team and vets as well as a number of marked police horse lorries.
The group met with the highly experienced and knowledgeable mounted police officer, Natasha Streek who gave her own account of her time in the saddle. Natasha has been with the force for 28 years and told the group how the horses work includes controlling crowds at sporting events or public ceremonies. The horses frequently attend events in London such as the Notting Hill carnival, football matches in London and the south and are sent to control crowds during riots. In addition, they undertake ceremonial duties including the state opening of Parliament, Royal Weddings and State Funerals. There are about 110 horses with the London Met.
The City Saddles group watched young horses being schooled in the arena and were encouraged to wave flags and imitate crowd noise, at the same time shopping trolleys and other objects were being moved around the arena but remarkably the young horses remained calm.
Natasha explained to the group that the police horses are invaluable to the force, and that a single police horse can do the job of twenty police officers. Horses have to be of a certain stamp, ideally 16hh or higher, of a quiet disposition so typically Irish Draught, Irish Sports Horse, Friesian or other larger breeds.
Good feet are essential, the force has its own team of three farriers, horses do a lot of road work and have their shoes changed every 2-3 weeks. The farriery team explained how they are using copper plated nails to reduce rusting and erosion in the hoof.
The Met welcome horses as gifts as long as they are suitable, they’ve received horses from a number of high profile donors including celebrities. The force look to home retired police horses and keep a list of people who would take a retired police horse. Checks are made of the suitability of the home but a bombproof four-legged friend awaits.
The City Saddles group also enjoyed looking round a small museum of memorabilia including uniform from days gone by as well as modern equipment, stable plaques of the Queens horses and photographs and medals of famous police horses. Horse and police equipment is constantly modified to protect both animals and officers, visors are now worn and can deflect lasers, chains are added in addition to leather reins to make them more robust.
Natasha talked through some of the most gruelling days including the Millwall riots in 2002 where almost 100 police officers were injured along with police horse Alamein.
