Okay I’ll admit it when I was a policeman on the Toronto Mounted Unit in the 1960’s I really enjoyed the attention I got when I rode through the busy streets of the city. It was as though my horse and I were a glimpse of the past, something almost ethereal amidst the chaos. I was always pumped up with pride as we pranced along turning heads and putting smiles on children’s faces. But as wonderful as it was I had to make the most of those moments because I knew, inevitably, at some point my horse would stop, lift his tail and deposit a steaming offering on the pavement and the vision would fade. Children would gag and grownups would hustle by trying not to notice. It always seemed to happen at the most inopportune moments and often-in regrettable locations and when it did all I could do was sit and appear quietly detached and try to maintain a modicum of dignity.
In those days city people still kept gardens and needed fertilizer so these random offerings left curbside were not much of a problem. There were, however, unusual situations in this regard that sorely tested the otherwise good relationship the Mounted Unit enjoyed with the public.
One day, while I was in the saddle writing a parking ticket on a quiet residential street, my mount took the opportunity to register his contempt for flashy vehicles by voiding into the driver’s seat of a convertible sports car.
My first instinct was to flee the scene and hope that the blame would fall on some other horse but since the only horses left in the city belonged to police force I realized that that idea wouldn’t fly.
For a moment I thought maybe if I left immediately it would be hard to trace the infraction to any specific police mount but as I looked down on the prodigious volume of the glistening heap I knew that only one horse in the stable was capable of producing a plop of that magnitude and I was sitting on him.
Old Major was a favorite of the Inspector and because he was coddled so much the horse was grossly overweight. He regularly consumed as much hay and as many oats as two or three of the other horses combined.
No they wouldn’t have to call in the detectives to determine who the guilty party was in this case.
I wrote an apologetic note on the back of a cancelled parking ticket and slipped it under the car’s windshield wiper then headed back to the stable to fess up.
The duty sergeant wasn’t too happy when I gave him my report and by the way he reprimanded me you would have thought it was I and not Major who had pooped in the MG.
I left the old horse in his stall for the rest of that afternoon and, armed with every cleaning device the station had to offer, I returned to the scene of the crime and cleaned up his mess.
The car’s owner was very understanding and, coincidently, after that day he never seemed to get anymore parking tickets.
While the uninhibited Police Horses were free to urinate, defecate and break wind with impunity anywhere they wanted it was a different matter for those who rode them.
In the old days when lots of city dwellers were familiar with horses it was a simple matter of recruiting a willing citizen to hold your horse while you went into a washroom to relieve yourself but by the sixties these handy volunteers were few and far between.
It was the practice of most mounted men to visit the toilet at the stables just before they went out on patrol but being caught short was still always a possibility, particularly for some of the semi incontinent older members of the unit.
If we were patrolling a park and there weren’t too many people around we could always dismount behind a bush for a quick whiz but if we had more serious business to attend to things could be difficult. The horses weren’t equipped with sirens for emergency runs back to the station.
A friend of mine and fellow constable was patrolling a park one summer day when a series a fierce stomach cramps demanded immediate attention, There was an outhouse close to a kids playground- the area was crowded but he didn’t see anyone who looked like they could hold his horse so, ever resourceful, my buddy came up with a plan whereby he could use the facility and hold his horse at the same time, it would be termed multi tasking today.
Trying not to draw too much attention to himself he dismounted and quietly led his horse over to the latrine then checking that nobody was looking turned around and sheepishly, backed through the door. He kept the reins in his hands and being careful not to scare the horse, partially closed the door then set about his business.
I don’t know how long he was in there, the Parks Dept probably didn’t supply magazines, but at some point someone or some something spooked his horse.
The wild-eyed animal reared and lurched backwards and my friend obeying the cardinal rule of never letting go of your horse held on for dear life. He was catapulted through the outhouse door with his britches and boxer shorts draped around his ankles then dragged a considerable distance over the turf before he got his horse stopped.
While startled mothers shrieked and shielded their children’s sensitive eyes a red faced cop slipped behind his horse, pulled up his drawers and regained his composure then mounted up and saluting the assembled crowd, rode off as if nothing had happened.
The mounted unit is still going strong in Toronto and I am sure they have benefited greatly by the advances in technology the last forty or so years have provided but horses still do what horses have always done and riders still have basic needs to look after so in that respect I’ll bet nothing much has changed.
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