A fascinating visit to meet the police horses at Imber Court today with the Wessex Classical Riding Group. We had an excellent guide in Civilian Groom, Natasha, who has worked with the horses for years and years and clearly loves her job. With 110 police horses within the Metropolitan Police force, 63 of which are living at Imber Court at present, she has plenty of work - here they train mounted police officers as well as the horses themselves. The officers attend a 22 week full time course and some of them have never been near a horse before. This was week 8 and they were already jumping - they do however ride three times a day! The horses are used at football matches, concerts and carnivals such as Notting Hill as well as every day duties dealing with whatever crime is thrown up in London including burglaries and robberies. Some of the horses live at local stations where they are stalled all the time although they get plenty of exercise every day. The horses are also used for ceremonial events and now have to look forward to the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.
They have a website at: http://www.met.police.uk/mountedbranch/duties.htm
