It's been 70 years since South Australia Police Mounted Operations was officially gazetted as a section of SAPOL.
When South Australia Police was founded in 1838 and included 10 Mounted Constables. The number of police horses grew to 250 at one point and then diminished with the uptake of motor vehicles.
In 1951 Mounted Cadre was created to assist in preparation for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 1954 – it was officially renamed Mounted Operations Unit in September 1998. The then Commissioner also introduced a policy for the sole use of grey horses, which are suitable for policing due to their high visibility, and availability following the Australian Army procuring most of the darker coloured horses to use for military purposes during world wars.
South Australia Police is the only jurisdiction in the world which uses grey horses exclusively and has been recognised as a South Australian Icon.
Commissioner of Police Grant Stevens said Mounted Operations currently has 33 hoses with 34 sworn and unsworn staff.
"Mounted Operations plays an important part in policing, combining a high focus on operational patrol duties along with, search and rescue and public order duties. They also perform an important ceremonial function for SAPOL and the State of South Australia" Commissioner Stevens said.
"Our Mounted Operations Unit is able to effectively deploy horses and riders to a variety of situations throughout the state."
Police Minister Vincent Tarzia said: "The prestigious SAPOL greys are iconic South Australian animals trained at Thebarton."
"These beautiful horses stand out in the dark making them ideal for night-time police duties and have long been crowd favourites at community events such as the Christmas Pageant," Minister Tarzia said.
Mounted Operations has specially trained horses and riders and it takes about four years to train a police horse to the point where they can undertake public order activities.
Today's special occasion was also celebrated with the meeting of the Commissioner and Police Horse Grantley who was named in his honour.
"I have no doubts Grantley will serve just as passionately as Commissioner Stevens," Minister Tarzia said.
The five year old, 17 hand Irish Sport Horse is the first to be named after a serving Commissioner of Police.
Horses are named in an orderly manner in groups through letters of the alphabet – Grantley is the last horse to be named beginning with G.
Police Horse Grantley is still in training and will be for a couple of years. He has a friendly temperament, loves attention and carrots.
Mounted Operations take pride in the naming of their horses, with the name usually associated with South Australia or its history.
The Mounted Operations stud book dates back to 1904 and other horses with noble names include 1907 there was a horse named Deputy, and there is now a PH Chief currently at the stables.
