February 2021 Issue

EAST COAST EQUESTRIAN February 2021 Page 7 By Marcella Peyre-Ferry Many colleges and uni- versities 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 organiza- tion typically has a force of twelve student officers. They patrol portions of the campus using three horses housed at the school. Mem- bers 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 Rutgers University Has the Nation’s Only Student Run Mounted Patrol have to be in that or any other par- ticular 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 some- day,” Watrous said. Applicants need to have English or western riding expe- rience. 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 Offi- cers, patrol members learn how to make calls over their radios, the geography of the campus, proce- dures 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 al- most feels like that mounted barn is my home at this point.” The horses work in pairs, sev- en 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 Living- ston campuses which are more densely developed. Riding around campus, the unit performs a high visibili- ty 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 pic- tures 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 (Continued on page 19) Lara Watrous on Austin and Maria DiCostanzo on Kash meet members of an inner-city 4-H group, many of whom had never before touched a horse, at Rutgers University. The Rutgers Mounted Patrol horses were all adopted from the Standardbred Retirement Foundation.