Lara Watrous on Austin (left) and Maria DiCostanzo on Kash meet members of an inner city 4-H group visiting the Rutgers campus.
Many colleges and universities have riding clubs or equestrian teams, but Rutgers University is the only one in the United States to have a student run mounted patrol unit.
Historically, the mounted patrol at Rutgers was originally a part of the campus police starting in the 1970s. When the department dropped the patrol, students brought it back as a club, bringing their own horses to use. In the early 2000s, the mounted patrol became a part of the Community Service Officer Program, which is overseen by the Rutgers Public Safety Department in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and is a paid job for students.
Operating now as both a club and a paid program, the organization typically has a force of twelve student officers. They patrol portions of the campus using three horses housed at the school. Members are paid for their time on patrol, while other activities out of uniform are unpaid club activities.
“Any time I’m in uniform on patrol on campus that’s part of the job,” said Lara Watrous who served as president of the club through the end of 2020, when she graduated.
Mounted Patrol members must interview and qualify as Community Service Officers. Some are attracted to the group because they are on a criminal justice study track, but they do not have to be in that or any other particular major to join. More often, they are animal science majors.
“A lot of our girls, after being on mounted patrol, actually consider becoming mounted patrol officers for big cities someday,” Watrous said.
Applicants need to have English or western riding experience. They must go through an interview, a practical test on horsemanship and a knowledge based written test. Rutgers has an English and western equestrian team, and Patrol members are often team members as well.
As Community Service Officers, patrol members learn how to make calls over their radios, the geography of the campus, procedures for handling situations that may arise, and how to complete the paperwork that is required after each shift. They are trained in first aid and CPR, and through their radios have direct contact to the Rutgers Police Department and dispatch.
“You definitely have to be committed to the program to be admitted,” Watrous said. “It almost feels like that mounted barn is my home at this point.”
The horses work in pairs, seven days a week while classes are in session, with each horse working two days then having a day off, so that the pairs are always changing. Officers rotate as well, so they are not consistently on the same horse. The Patrol is based on the more rural Cook/Douglass campus. They also periodically trailer the horses to work on the Bush and Livingston campuses which are more densely developed.
Riding around campus, the unit performs a high visibility patrol. “We act as a liaison between security and the student body,” Watrous said. “People are a lot more willing to talk to you because you’ve got a horse. They want to pet the horses, take pictures of the horses, they’re more willing to come up to us and say if they saw something sketchy.”
For the more rural campuses, the horses are able to go to places cars can’t reach, and officer radios are able to reach help in areas where cell phone service is poor.
“It’s about having a presence on campus. At Rutgers, you’d be hard pressed to never see any form of public safety. We’re yet another highly visible show of public safety to make people feel more comfortable,” Watrous said. “We’re not as intimidating. People come up to us to have a conversation all the time.”
All three horses in the patrol came to Rutgers through the Standardbred Retirement Foundation. They are not similar in appearance, spanning 15.2 h to 17. 2 h. and running from dark bay to grey, but they all have a good attitude for their job. The patrol looks for even tempered horses that have been broken to ride. They should have confidence, be steady, not spooky and have good ground manners.
Austin, raced as Eagle Power, has been with the patrol the longest of the three. “He has a grumpy old man personality. He puts up with anything but never puts his ears forward,” Watrous said.
Norman, raced under the name Northern Haze, is the youngest horse in the team at age 14, and the largest at 17.2h. “He has a little kid personality. He’ll push his boundaries a little bit, but he knows what his job is and he’s happy to do it,” Watrous said.
Kash, known as Kash Contrast when he raced, is the newest addition to the team, with just a year and a half of experience in the mounted patrol unit. He spent time as a buggy horse after his racing career ended and has adapted well to the patrol work. “He’s real sweet. We’re still working out some of his eccentricities,” Watrous said.
Officers had an opportunity to attend a mounted police clinic last October that helped the club develop a program of desensitization training. The horses have been working on a variety of situations such as learning to push a large ball around while walking or overcoming their fears of construction fencing by having it hung near their feeders.
“We’re working with them, doing something every day to help them get over silly little fears. We only have a limited amount of time to work with them,” Watrous said.
Watrous gives the example of one of the horses having a fear of walking over sewer grates, an item they come into contact with very often. When stationed at a location with a sewer grate in the area, they make a point to stand near the grate and walk over it as much as possible.
“As with any kind of horse training its very adaptive,” she said.
The patrol had to adapt to pandemic conditions when students were sent home due to Covid-19. With that temporary change and graduations, the patrol was down to just five officers at the start of the year, and Kaitlin Quinn replaces Watrous as club president. Applications were being accepted in January for new members.
“I think you get a lot of confidence out of this experience,” Watrous said. “You are a focal point in the community because you’re in an urban setting riding a horse.”
For more information, visit the club website at www.rumounted.wixsite.com