DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. (WPMT) — Corporal Carrie Neidigh has been training horses to be a part of a State Police mounted patrol unit ahead of Super Bowl celebrations in Philadelphia this Sunday (Feb. 4).
“If it’s a close game, we’ll probably be in the saddle a lot sooner, if it’s a game that seems kind of a blow out either way, we may not get into the saddle until the fourth quarter,” Cpl. Carrie Neidigh, supervisor of tactical mounted section for Pennsylvania State Police.
“Because we are here at our academy, we have the advantage of having up to 200 cadets here at a time, so we’ll actually use the cadets and mimic large crowds and rides with them where they’ll have signs, pool noodles, we’ll set off fireworks,” Neidigh.
Anything that would typically be seen in a large celebration, like the Super Bowl is what State Troopers try to replicate to train the horses.
Each horse will go through 120 hours of training.
“We’ll also have the horses stand in a line and the cadets will come up up them hollering, screaming, celebrating, to get them ready for events such as the Super Bowl, because those are the types of things you’ll see there,” added Neidigh.
20 of these horses standing right behind me will be heading to Philadelphia Sunday ahead of the Super Bowl to help keep crowds safe.
“The advantage of having horses there, is they say one horse is equal to about 10 guys on the ground,” said Neidigh.
“They’re large animals so it’s easier to see into a crowd, you can look down and see what’s going on a good ways, also, you can get them a lot closer to people, and when they see them, they tend to back up,” said Cpl. Chuck Miller, Pennsylvania State Police.
Before the big day, each horse will get nice bath, a fresh new hair cut and hooves cleaned.
So we had to ask: “Will they be wearing any sort of green at all?”
“No they won’t they, have green on them tomorrow, they’ll just have their regular equipment that they wear, but, they’ll be rooting for the Eagles on the inside,” added Neidigh.
