Cavalry police unit over 100 years old
The Tokyo Urban Police Cavalry Unit has 23 members and 16 horses.
The Cavalry Police Unit of the Tokyo Urban Police force was established in September 1903. Some time after the end of World War II, after September 1950 this unit was in charge of handling traffic safety violations. However, along with the change of the times, horses have been replaced by other means such as motorbikes for police officers when handling traffic issues.
Currently, Tokyo's Cavalry is a satellite unit with the traffic police responsible for monitoring children on the routes to school. In addition, the police also participate in traffic safety and crime prevention guides at least 300 times a year, according to Asahi.
Asahi said that the new horses will be added to the unit after being selected from healthy and calm old racehorses at Kanto horse racing clubs for less than 1 million yen (about $9,180) per horse.
One of the prominent horses of the Tokyo urban police force is Reiko, according to Asahi. Reiko was a horse racing club in Kanagawa Prefecture when he started as a racing horse in 2011 and retired in 2015 after winning five horse races organized locally.
Other notable horses of the Tokyo City Police have Hercles - a famous race horse who died in July 2019 - and Tosho Sirocco - a horse that earned up to 300 million yen during his career.
Two other Japanese Cavalry Police units
In addition to the Cavalry Police of the Tokyo Urban Police, Japan has 2 other Cavalry Police units of the Kyoto Provincial Police and the honorary police force of the National Police.
Information about the Kyoto police force on the pref.kyoto.jp page shows that the rangers of this agency include the Binh An Cavalry Police force (Heian).
The task of Binh An Cavalry Police is to patrol community areas to ensure the safety of local children on their way to school and home from school. In addition, the Cavalry Police are also making efforts to build close relationships with local residents by participating in various community events.
The pref.kyoto.jp page did not specify the number of police and horses on the payroll of the Binh An Cavalry unit. However, Wikipedia said that this unit had 16 horses.
Meanwhile, with the honorary police force of the Japanese national police, there are 14 horses that honorary police use in state rituals. In addition to security tasks, this force also takes on the responsibility of firefighting in the royal palace grounds, maintaining fire trucks and trained staff for this purpose.
