THE Garda Mounted Support Unit are now seeking additional Irish Draught horses on an ongoing basis from January 2025.

In a video with the Irish Horse Board, Garda Nives Caplice, shared what is needed from a horse to join the mounted unit. “Predominantly, we have used the indigenous Irish Draught throughout the training and purchase of the Garda Mounted Unit.

“We favour this breed as it is a lovely, docile animal, and we find that they’re strong, brave and quiet and very good for what we require the horses on the street to do, and they have a great temperament, are very good in crowds and great with traffic. We also want to support Irish breeders,” Garda Caplice said.

She added: “If anyone thinks that they might have a suitable horse, they can find our details on the An Garda Síochána website under the Garda Mounted Unit. When we’re looking for a horse, we’re looking predominantly at the full Irish Draught. We’re looking for the horse to be over four years old and broken and riding, and we’re looking for it to be a minimum of 16.2hh, to create uniformity within our horses.

“We also require geldings. We’re a very small unit with small facilities, so therefore we just like to keep it to geldings over the age of four.”

Horses are initially introduced on a six-week trial and, if suitable, they are then trained to become police horses. This process involves slowly introducing them to the various hazards and problems they may encounter whilst on patrol or crowd duty. If you think you may have a suitable horse, contact the Garda Mounted Unit directly at www.garda.ie.