I just thought I'd share this.
--Vic
====================

Jul. 21, 2005. 01:00 AM

Mane event is to stay cool for mounted police unit
Horses put in 14-hour days at Caribana

200 pounds of officer doesn't help


CHRISTIAN COTRONEO
STAFF REPORTER
THE TORONTO STAR

The first in an occasional series on the city's hot and dirty,
somebody's-gotta-do-it jobs.


There are a few things weighing on Kevin Bradfield.

Like a bulletproof vest, gun belt and helmet.

And a few things weighing on his horse. Namely, about 200 pounds of
fully equipped Toronto police officer.

Still the heaviest burden of all hangs over them both — the sun.

When Bradfield, a constable in Toronto's mounted police unit, rides
out of the Horse Palace at Exhibition Place on daily patrol, it's
waiting in all its million-degree glory.

"It's pretty hot," he says, high atop his faithful steed. "Just
because of all the clothing you've got on."

Toronto's mounted police are just a few of summer's soldiers, in this
city of sweat, sallying forth every day in the name of duty. They
cover the city from High Park to Regent Park.

But once a week, the assignment gets a little more daunting.

At 7 a.m. on a Tuesday, the sun offers just a glimmer of the simmer to
come — but in the non-air-conditioned barn at the edge of Exhibition
Place, it's already throwing its weight around.

About a dozen men and one woman sweep, shovel and sweat through the
weekly "muck-up."

That's when members of the mounted division shovel up accumulated
sawdust, straw and manure. Some power-wash the stalls; others sweep
debris into the hallway, and another pushes it along with a tractor.

Amid flies, dust and the unmistakable scent of smouldering manure, it
doesn't take long to stir up a sweat.

Even some of the horses need to be cooled down with a hose before
meeting the sun head-on. On the hottest days, patrols may span only 90
minutes or so before a vital recharge at the barn.

But there's water in the field, if you know where to find it.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`By the end of (a long) day, the horse doesn't like you. You don't
like the horse'

Const. Kris McCarthy,

Toronto Police Mounted Unit

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"A lot of the fire departments are great," says Staff Sgt. Heidi
Magill, the lone woman in the barn during muck-up. "Pull up to the
back door and they bring the buckets out."

Fortunately, the city may be getting a reprieve from buckets of sweat
— for now — as a cool front moves into the region for the weekend.

At Exhibition Place, there's a barn-full of hope that cooler breezes
will prevail throughout next week's Caribana festival.

Because there's no better crowd control — and view of the parade —
than 1,600 pounds of towering muscle, the mounted unit will send all
of its horses to the events running from next Thursday, July 28,
through the weekend.

Officers can look forward to at least four shifts, each as long as 14
hours, in the unrelenting sun.

"By the end of the day, the horse doesn't like you," says Const. Kris
McCarthy. "And you don't like the horse."

"If we have this heat, it's going to be awful," adds Magill. As staff
sergeant, she could be leading a platoon or, better yet, luxuriating
in her air-conditioned office at the other end of the barn.

"You really should know what your guys are doing," she says.

In a nearby stall, Const. Chris Heard dotes on his horse, Major,
shaving hair around the hooves with an electric trimmer. Major, a
1,600-pound Percheron/quarter-horse cross, black as a nightmare,
doesn't even flinch. "This horse is special," Heard says.

Considering Major's hurly-burly history, the young officer may be just
a little biased.

"He tends to injure a lot of people," he says, referring to past
riders who had trouble reining in the horse's more athletic impulses.

Heard handles his horse with ease, and a little more tenderness than
usual. Recently promoted to sergeant, he'll be leaving the barn soon
for street duty. "If I ever come back here as sergeant, he will be the
horse that I take," Heard says.

Bradfield, on the other hand, has no plans to leave any time soon. The
mounted unit is a dream job for the Parkdale native, whose father took
him to see the horses at the CNE as a boy.

"I'd be down here every other day," he muses. "It's kind of weird to
see myself down here years later."

A while ago, Bradfield's father, now in a wheelchair, returned to the
stables to cheer him on during a graduation ceremony. "That was the
first time we've been together in the Horse Palace since I was a
little kid," he says.

"Life comes full circle."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...odalogin=ye s