When I’m out with my camera, I’m drawn to horses the same way I’m drawn to children blowing bubbles and protesters rioting. Photographically speaking, horses make a great subject, especially on a 21st century city street where they seem so out-of-place. We expect Ubers, Teslas, electric scooters, and (if we’re to believe the prognosticators of the newest of the new) self-driving cars. Horses properly belong to a bygone era. And yet the police still sometimes ride the streets on horses. I’m not sure why. Is it because horses have PR value? Do they calm crowds? Do they endear children to law enforcement?
I can think of at least one group of ordinary citizens who absolutely despise police horses—cyclists. They shit in the bike lanes and nobody bothers to scoop it up. Cyclists are forced to swerve into traffic to avoid the clods, either that or plow straight through and pray their rear wheels don’t spray bits of it up their backs. But I’m no cyclist. When I see a horse, I temporarily lose my mind and run with my camera to get some shots.
Such an opportunity arose the other evening. Dusk was settling over King Street as I rounded the corner from Spadina. A police officer was riding a horse from a side street onto King Street, only the police officer didn’t appear to be in charge. Something was up, but horse and rider were facing away from me so I couldn’t see what it was. The police officer tugged at the reins and the horse tugged back. After some serious pulling, he got the horse turned around and cantered back up the side street where he gave the horse a proper talking to. By then, I was close enough to see what was going on. They—whoever they is, maybe the local business association—have set up big pots overflowing with holiday decorations; not plastic decorations, but real decorations made of evergreen branches. The horse had gotten its head into one of the pots and yanked out a branch of greenery for a snack.
The police officer tried to lean over the horse’s head and reach down to its mouth, but the horse wasn’t giving anything up. It’s not as if the rider was a wimp. Both in physique and in the way he spoke, he reminded me of Jeremy Renner from The Hurt Locker. But these are big horses and, as he told me afterwards, once they set their mind on something, there’s no changing it. I know a lot of people like that, too. After they had settled their differences, they were both happy to pose for me. The horse had lovely minty cedar breath and didn’t shit once.
