The Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch is the

mounted police Mounted police are police who patrol on horseback or camelback. Their day-to-day function is typically picturesque or ceremonial, but they are also employed in crowd control because of their mobile mass and height advantage and increasingly in th ...

branch of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

's Metropolitan Police. It is part of

Met Operations Met Operations, also known as Met Ops, is one of the eight business groups which forms the Metropolitan Police Service and is responsible for providing operational support services. It was created during the 2018–19 restructuring of the service ...

History

The Bow Street Horse Patrol was formed in 1763, but ceased after eighteen months when funding ran out. Revived in 1805, it was attached to the new Metropolitan Police in 1836 and formally merged into it three years later via Chapter VI of that year's

Metropolitan Police Act Metropolitan Police Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used for legislation relating to the Metropolitan Police. List *The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 ( 10 Geo. 4. c. 44) *The Metropolitan Police Act 1833 ( 3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 89) ...

. Mounted patrols from the Metropolitan Police's stations continued, but the modern Mounted Branch was only formalised in 1918 by Percy Laurie, a retired

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer.Mounted Police
''Equus'' (13 January 2003).

Operations

Figures released by the Met under a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the annual number of police horses in the MPS Mounted Branch Unit in calendar years 2009 to 2018 ranged from a low of 100 to a high of 116.Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.19.002021: Information about MPS dogs and horses
Metropolitan Police Service. As of 2016, the annual average cost incurred by the police force was £5,558 per horse, not including stabling, and there were 142 police officers qualified to ride. The total budget for the mounted unit was £9,969,736 in 2018. The police horses used are typically either half

thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a list of horse breeds, horse breed developed for Thoroughbred racing, horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thorough ...

and half draft breed, or three-quarters thoroughbred and one-quarter draft breed. The police horses are used for patrols of London's main parks; for ceremonial events; and for

crowd control Crowd control is a public security practice in which large crowds are managed in order to prevent the outbreak of crowd crushes, affray, fights involving drunk and disorderly people or riots. Crowd crushes in particular can cause many hundre ...

at events such as football matches.Police horses back on beat as Hyde Park stables re-open
''Evening Standard'' (27 April 2010).Chris Giacomantonio, Ben Bradford, Matthew Davies & Richard Martin

RAND Europe (2014).Jill Insley
A working life: the mounted police officer
''The Guardian'' (9 December 2011). A 2014 RAND Europe/

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Centre for Criminology study found: "While mounted police in the UK are traditionally thought of as public-order policing resources, deployment data show that they spend between 60-70 per cent of their time in local area patrols, and 10-20 per cent of their time in public order work, with the remainder spent in activities such as ceremonial deployments." A typical daily patrol is , but a police horse escort of the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery from its

St John's Wood St John's Wood is a district in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden and the City of Westminster, London, England, about 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Historically the northern part of the Civil Parish#An ...

barracks to

central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...

is . The Branch has eight

stables A stable is a building in which working animals are kept, especially horses or oxen. The building is usually divided into stalls, and may include storage for equipment and feed. Styles There are many different types of stables in use tod ...

:MPS Stables - Supply & Delivery Of Feed, Forage & Bedding
(18 December 2019). Hyde Park, Lewisham Police Station,Sarah Trotter
Meet the horses at Lewisham Police Station
''News Hopper'' (30 January 2014).

Great Scotland Yard Great Scotland Yard is a street in Westminster, London, connecting Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall. By the 16th century, this "yard", which was then a series of open courtyards within the Palace of Whitehall, was fronted by buildings used ...

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It ...

West Hampstead West Hampstead is an area in the London Borough of Camden. Neighbouring areas includes Childs Hill to the north, Frognal to the east, Swiss Cottage to the south-east, South Hampstead to the south and Kilburn to the south-west. The neighbourh ...

Bow Road Bow Road is a thoroughfare in Bow, London, England. The road forms part of the A11 road (England), A11, running from Aldgate to Norwich in Norfolk. To the west the road becomes Mile End Road, and to the east is Bow Interchange on the A12 road ...

, Kings Cross, and Imber Court in

East Molesey East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. The horses are trained at the latter site. The

City of London Police The City of London Police is the territorial police force#United Kingdom, territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle Temple, Middle and Inner Temple, Inner Temples. The for ...

, which is separate from the Met Police, also maintains a mounted unit.

References

{{Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch Mounted police