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Mounted police

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Mounted police are police who patrol on horseback. They continue to serve in remote areas and in metropolitan areas where their day-to-day function may be largely picturesque or ceremonial, but they are also employed in crowd control. Mounted police may be employed for specialized duties ranging from patrol of parks and wilderness areas, where police cars would be impractical or noisome, to riot duty, where the horse serves to intimidate those whom it is desired to disperse. For example, in the UK mounted police are most often seen at football matches.

The most famous mounted police force is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP now uses standard police methods and does not use any horses operationally; however, horses are used in the Musical Ride, an RCMP pageant. The worlds oldest continuous mounted police unit is the New South Wales Mounted Police, located in Sydney, Australia.

The U.S. Border Patrol had 205 horses as of 2005. Most of these were employed along the U.S.-Mexico border. In Arizona, these animals are fed special processed feed pellets so that their wastes do not spread non-native plants in the national parks and wildlife areas they patrol.

A mounted police officer on duty in Montreal's Parc du Mont-Royal
A mounted policewoman patrolling at a summer music festival in Helsinki, Finland.
Mounted riot police used to disperse a crowd during protests in Edinburgh, Scotland.
File:RNC Mounted unit.jpg
Mounted police officers of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, North America's oldest police force
City of London Police Mounted Section officer
Mounted Metropolitan Police officer outside Buckingham Palace, London
File:Gmupatrol.jpg
Garda Síochána Mounted Unit
Officer of Mounted Platoon, Poznań
A Mounted Deputy Sheriff at Memorial Day parade in Ohio, USA

List of mounted police units

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