About Us: Who is the Horse Patrol?

Often referred to as:

"The Vermont Mounted Response Unit..."
"The Vermont Horse Patrol..."
"The Vermont Mounted Police..."
"The Green Mountain Mounties..."

Officially we are the Vermont Mounted Response Unit, but we'll answer to any of these! We are the state's only mounted response team. Our highly trained rangers and police horses provide field services to law enforcement agencies, search operations and event organizers.

The Horse Patrol is a Vermont non-profit corporation based at Catamount Ranch in northern Addison County, approximately halfway between Burlington and Middlebury.

We maintain a high tech mobile command center that enables us to respond extremely quickly, providing services throughout the northeastern United States. We arrive on site with portable corrals and living quarters that afford tremendous flexibility. The unit is active throughout the year, maintaining four-season off-road capability in addition to the equine mounts.

Most of the horses in the patrol are owned by and reside with their rider. Like police dogs, the bond between human and animal officers is strengthened with daily contact and frequent training reinforcement at home, allowing them to develop the trust and friendship necessary to do this job.

Mounted units in big cities like London, New York and Boston typically prefer large draft or draft cross horses for their size and intimidation factor. We have found that for our purposes and in our environment, strong medium-sized mounts work best. Our horses must be able to perform crowd control at a state fair one day and be called out the next to do backcountry, off-trail search and rescue work, and drafts have more difficulty navigating the forests of New England.

Temperament, reliability and intelligence determine whether a horse is a good candidate for mounted unit training (same criteria we use for our rangers!); breed, gender and age are less important. Prior experience or training in either police or rescue work is not necessary for either horse or rider, as full training is provided by the Vermont Mounted Response Unit.