Tempe Police looking to purchase horses
Sep 4, 2015, 8:30 AM
PHOENIX — The Tempe Police Department’s mounted unit is not horsing around in its search for a couple of new members. The department is in the market for two horses to patrol Mill Avenue and bring to community outreach events.
“They do need to be a gelding which is a male horse, preferably about six feet tall,” Officer Stephanie Braxton said.
Braxton and other members of the mounted unit have been searching for about year but have not found the perfect horses to saddle up.
“They need to have the right brain because some horses just aren’t meant to be walking with traffic and walking with 100,000 people coming out of a stadium, so it takes a special animal to fit that bill,” Braxton said.
The department, which has one of three active, full-time mounted units in the state (MCSO and Scottsdale), is looking to spend approximately $3,000 to $4,000 on each horse and they will also accept donations. Anyone with leads on a horse that might be a good fit is asked to contact Tempe Police.
“If they do feel that they have that awesome, perfect horse in their backyard that they think ‘this thing isn’t scared of anything, its bomb-proof’ we would love to hear from you,” she said.
Several of the mounted unit’s horses are nearing retirement so officers are hoping to find young horses.
“In about five or six years a lot of these horses are going to be retired so we are looking for a younger horse in the two to four-year-old range that we can train and bring up and make the vehicle stops and loud noises their normal and not something that they need to be scared of,” she said.