By Lisa E. CrowleyThe BrocktonPost
MILTON--When the Massachusetts DCR Park Ranger Mounted Unit hosts its semi-annual holiday open house next Sunday, the popular horse-riding unit will have a few new friends by its side.
A new non-profit organization, Friends of the Massachusetts Park Ranger Mounted Unit has recently formed with the goal of raising enough money to bring more of the mounted units back into the state’s public parks beginning with increasing the number from one to three that currently patrol the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton.
“It’s in its infancy,” said Maureen McLaughlin, a Hanover resident and president of the group which completed the incorporation process in October.
“Hopefully, eventually, it will grow and more people will help out and donate money,” McLaughlin said.
The holiday open house will be held Sunday, December 12 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the stables adjacent to 685 Hillside Street in Milton that once housed a corps of hoof-stomping horses that patroled the 7,000 acres of Blue Hills Reservation.
The event is free and includes pony rides, free pictures with Santa and other children’s activities, hot cocoa, cookies and tours of the historic, yet run-down Brian T. Broderick stables and barn.
The event is free, but Friends organizers hope attendees will make donations to help the group begin what are expected to be long-term fundraising events.
The holiday open house has been an annual celebration held by the rangers in the mounted unit—that is when the mounted unit has been in existence.
Once a mainstay, throughout the last decade the horse unit has been pared back and has been on again-and-off again in Blue Hills and other state parks because of budget cuts.
In 2004 the unit was completely disbanded after the State Legislature cut funds for the horses despite an outcry of public support that attempted to save the beloved unit.
In the spring of 2008 the mounted rangers rode again after being reinstated through a $100,000 budget rider that supported a three-horse patrol.
It has operated as a three-horse unit since. However, two of the horses do not patrol the Blue Hills on a regular basis and are with the Plymouth Country Sheriff’s Office.
Once dozens of horses and rangers trotted through the more than 15 state parks and reservations and covered more than 300,000 acres.
The Blue Hills mounted unit travels to other area parks performing safety tours and educational programs but is limited.
Because the historic Brian T. Broderick stable and barn is in such a state of disrepair, horses are stabled elsewhere.
The stable and barn are currently used to store lawn and other maintenance equipment.
All across the country mounted units often are the first line items eyed for cuts during difficult financial times and in a majority of cases friends groups have organized to raise money to save those horse units.
These friends groups have had a greater and lesser degree of success.
Last year the City of Boston cut its 12-member Boston Police mounted unit. It saved the city $600,000 but ended an era of the horses patroling Boston’s streets and public parks that dated back to 1873.
A quickly launched friends group was unable to prevent the Boston unit's demise.
In Cleveland, Ohio, the mounted police have patroled the streets for more than 100 years. For more than 20 years a friends group has paid for the care and cost of the horses and the City of Cleveland pays the bills for employees and stables.
Currently, the Cleveland Mounted Police has seven horses and three riders—down from 11 a few years ago and far short of the 80-head during the unit’s heyday.
The Cleveland friends group estimates it costs about $160 per day, or more than $58,000 a year, to pay for the hay, oats and other necessities to care for the horses and city funds are getting smaller and smaller.
In Washington D.C., an elite mounted unit formed in 2003 by Congress to patrol the nation’s Capitol was decommissioned just two years later when Congress cutoff the $145,000-unit with six officers and five horses and have not been patrolling since.
From Philadelphia, Penn., to San Jose, Calif., to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire--where a friends group has kept the horses on the beaches at least for this fiscal year--legislators have cut money to pay for the popular mounted units.
Lt. Susan Murphy Survillo, a mounted ranger with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state agency that oversees the state's parks, said people love the horse units and are an invaluable public relations asset for the rangers and police forces around the U.S.
"People want to see the horses in the parks and on the beaches," Murphy Survillo said. "Nobody is going to come up and pat a cruiser or an all-terrain vehicle. We're the goodwill ambassadors for the DCR and the state," she said.
While the horse units are people magnets--especially for kids--they are useful as safety personnel on trails and can reach places and navigate terrain motorized vehicles cannot.
Supporters also say the mounted units in city, suburban and rural parks and communities have been credited with deterring crime and keeping possibly highly-charged crowds in control.
"An officer or ranger on a horse has a wider range of view and can see much more of what is going on on the ground," Murphy Survillo said. "An officer on a horse is also intimidating and might stop someone from doing something because of their presence," she said.
Friends group President McLaughlin--whose is an avid dressage rider and competes with her thoroughbred Laddie throughout New England--said while the group is small today, they hope to grow and be able to help in the restoration of not only the mounted units, but also the decrepit Broderick stables and barn—loosely estimated in the millions to restore.
"That's a dream and probably years down the road, but you have to start somewhere," McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said she and fellow friends board members, Lisa Young of Salem and Jeff Livingstone of Franklin are hopeful those in the area’s equestrian world, park enthusiasts, and horse-unit lovers will donate and help keep alive the tradition of the mounted unit in the state’s parks.
They are supported by a handful of volunteers and are beginning plans for fundraising events, such as a possible bowling tournament, Country-Western line dancing nights, golf events and in the spring, seek to offer self-guided trail rides through Blue Hills for those who own horses.
McLaughlin said the Friends--for a fee--would offer coffee and donuts before the ride, lunch afterward and special trail maps for riders to clip-clop through the Blue Hills.
She said the group rides are popular in other areas and are a way for horse lovers and owners to meet other horse owners on a social level.
She said often horse owners ride alone because of busy schedules or their friends do not have horses.
“It fosters camaraderie and it’s for a good cause,” McLaughlin said.
Anyone wishing to make a tax deductible donation or want to join the group visit the group's Facebook pages at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-the-MA-Park-Ranger-Mounted-Unit/112526825455601
(Photos courtesy Friends of Massachusetts Park Rangers Mounted Unit and DCR)
