But Ms. Feliciano did not come out to Indian Head Ranch in Huntington on Long Island last month for the view. She was one of seven Mount Vernon officers — four men and three women — who were trying out for four slots in a new mounted unit the department intends to introduce later this year.
The roughly $65,000 needed to create the unit, which will start with two horses stabled in Eastchester, was provided mostly by the Mount Vernon Police Foundation, a group of local businesspeople, according to the city’s police commissioner, David Chong.
“It’s great community policing,” said Mr. Chong, explaining why he wanted to start a mounted unit. “It humanizes the officer and puts him on the street where people can get close. The horse becomes a friendly barrier instead of a car.”
In addition, Mr. Chong said, “it’s a great crime-prevention tool, because it’s a 16-foot, 3,000-pound officer.”
Mr. Chong said he believed that Mount Vernon, whose four square miles range from poor and gritty to prosperous and leafy, would be the only city in the area after New York and White Plains to have a mounted unit. Only a handful of cities and counties throughout the state have such units, but they are an effective crime deterrent wherever they are stationed, according to Sheriff James Kralik of Rockland County, who trains the units statewide.
First, though, Mount Vernon had to see which of these seven officers — all of whom had volunteered and said they had little to no riding experience — showed the most promise. It was the second week at the ranch for four contenders, Peter Sikoryak, Danny Dumser, Denis Kelly and Chantia Kelley; two others, Ms. Feliciano and Juliette Roach, were up on horses for the first time. (The seventh officer, Stephen Dempsey, was not at the ranch that day.)
Ms. Roach was already expressing doubts as she struggled to get comfortable atop Dakota, a quarter horse, which is a typical ranch horse, as opposed to a thoroughbred racing horse. “I don’t know if I want to be on one of these all the time,” she said. “It’s kind of hard on my buttocks. I think I’ll stick to rappelling down buildings.”
Sgt. Matthew Lombardo, who, along with the ranch operator, Wayne Dougal, was charged with assessing the officers’ skill, pointed to Mr. Sikoryak, who confidently guided his horse, a large chestnut named Judge, around the ring in a canter, then brought him to a clean stop.
“He’s one of the front-runners,” Sergeant Lombardo said.
Indeed, it was hard to believe that Mr. Sikoryak, 31, hadn’t ridden before, except for a bit of trail riding on vacations as a youth. Why did he want to be on the mounted unit? “The chance to be part of a new unit is a high point,” he said. “And riding a horse for a living can’t be all that bad.”
By mid-morning, it was time to group into teams of two to practice sorting a baby longhorn cow from a horde of 15 — a technique similar to one mounted officers use to break into crowds and isolate someone in trouble, or making trouble.
With the help of Spot, a feisty little Australian cattle dog that nipped at the longhorns’ heels, Mr. Sikoryak and Mr. Dumser managed to single out their cow in 20 seconds.
“These guys are ringers!” Mr. Dougal crowed.
It was not so easy for the two newcomers, Ms. Feliciano and Ms. Roach. “Get up on your cow’s butt!” Dougal yelled as their horses waded aimlessly into the pool of longhorns. Ms. Feliciano looked aggrieved, which matched the sentiment emblazoned on her T-shirt: “It’s Just Not a Perfect World.”
By lunch, the copious amounts of dust and horse dander in the air had Ms. Feliciano tight-chested and fearing a bout of asthma, which she said she had had since she was 15. En route to lunch, the group dropped her off at a hospital emergency room for an inhalation treatment, and she was back in the afternoon, shortly after the group saddled up new horses to practice cantering around the indoor ring. The goal was to regulate one’s horse’s speed and keep it as close to the ring walls as possible.
“Get them to the rails!” Dougal shouted whenever horses wandered toward the middle. Again, the more seasoned men all showed respectable form, though Mr. Sikoryak acknowledged humbly that their first day had been “a train wreck.”
Mr. Dumser echoed him: “We tried to close our legs on the bus ride home, and we couldn’t.”
Ms. Feliciano rallied for her turn, but, not yet having mastered “posting” — the practice of moving in one’s saddle in synch with the horse’s gallop — she looked miserable jouncing atop Dakota. “If you can keep your hands steady, your body won’t be bouncing,” Dougal told her. “You just have to find your timing.”
That, he said, and let the horse know who’s boss: “They know you’re going to pull on their face and bang on their belly,” he said, “and they just deal with it.”
Ms. Feliciano went on to have a good (and asthma-free) week at the ranch, she reported later. In late September, she learned that she, along with Mr. Sikoryak, Mr. Dumser and Mr. Dempsey, had been chosen for the new unit. The four will train intensively this fall with the Nassau County Police mounted unit on Long Island.
“I’m very excited,” she said. “I love the challenge.”
And as for her aching backside, she waxed stoic: “You get used to it.”
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