July 2020 Issue

The news East Coast horse owners need to know Remember...tell our advertisers you found them in East Coast Equestrian! EAST COAST EQUESTRIAN July 2020 Page 11 44 Edgefield Rd. • Quarryville, PA 17566 Police Horses Bridge the Gap says, “fireworks, streamers, simple obstacles. Exposing your horse over and over, with encour- agement and reassuring them that it’s not dangerous helps get them through things.” And they try to replicate what the horse might encounter on the street. “We bought a baby pool and filled it with plastic bottles and empty beer cans and made the horses walk through it. It crunches,” he says. “When they are on the street at a protest or an event, people typically throw stuff on the ground and we have to walk through that.” He says they also have smoke grenades and the hors- es walk through the smoke. And CS gas—tear gas—which Lukacs says doesn’t affect horses. When they’re on the job doing crowd control, the horses do have face shields to protect them. Lukacs says that during recent events some of the people in the crowd did throw things at them. Training is constant—even when they’re just riding the hors- es in the park. Inevitably they’ll encounter crowds, screaming kids, traffic noises. The horse and rider teams are set, and that reinforces the trust that is built up over time. Liam is Lukacs’ horse. “When I have a day off, Liam has a day off. When I’m on vacation, he’s on vacation.” From Patrol Car to Horseback Lukacs says his first job with the Lancaster Bureau of Po- lice was in a patrol car. He had never even touched a horse when Mike Corso, the lead instructor in the Mounted Patrol Unit ap- proached him and invited him to try out. “I remember telling him ‘I think you’ve got the wrong person.’” But Corso persisted. “If you’re open minded,” he told Lukacs, “I can teach anybody how to ride. But I can’t teach them how to talk to people. Once you’re on this horse, people are going to want to talk to you; and if you’re not the type of officer who wants to interact with peo- ple, then you should not be on the back of this horse.” Lukacs says that Corso want- ed to ensure the Mounted Patrol would maintain high standards of interacting with the public and caring for the horses in the four-person unit. He said he went through six weeks of riding lessons one on one with Corso before he and his partner Liam went on patrol. His first shift on Mount- ed Patrol in Lancaster was a revelation. “People saw us in a different light, and it was really nice.” He recalled what it had been like when he was in a patrol car. “I worked nights, from seven to seven, usually when the worst stuff happens. People are victim- ized and they’re having the worst day of their lives.” But walking the streets with Liam was a com- pletely different game. “When I got on the horse and went on patrol, people would wave and come over, ask the horse’s name. It was overwhelming to realize that they’re not coming with problems. They’re having a good day.” He says he told Corso that he felt like the ice cream man. They don’t discourage people from approaching the horses, and Lukacs really enjoys engaging people in conversations. “We have never had any policy that keeps people from touching our horses. They should just ask us first. We don’t turn down kids, unless we’re in the middle of a situation,” he says. “People love animals. People in Pennsylvania love animals,” he says, and that adds another layer of satisfaction to his job. It has been a great ride for Lukacs, who graduated from Greensboro College and Mill- ersville University. After he had been part of the Mounted Patrol Unit, he was selected to train with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa, and he grad- uated from the Mounted Police Instructor School at the Universi- ty of North Carolina. (Continued from page 4)