Cpl. Jason Kadluboski and Bugsy

Cpl. Jason Kadluboski has been with the Gilroy Police Department since 1997. He works in the detective unit and investigations, handling cases such as missing persons, property crimes, homicide and robbery. Once or twice a month—less often during rainy winters—Kadluboski rides his horse, Bugsy, as part of Gilroy’s Mounted Patrol unit.

Gilroy Patch: How do you select a horse to be a good candidate for the mounted patrol? When we spoke with , we found there are really only one or two sources for trained police dogs. Is that true for police horses as well?

Jason Kadluboski: No, it’s very different with horses. Our horses come from a variety of places, and most of them don’t have any formal police training when we get them.

Patch: How do you know that a horse will have the right temperament for police work?

Kadluboski: You don’t always know if a horse will be able to handle police work. A lot of it depends on how you train the animal. You have to introduce new situations—what we call sensory elements—very slowly. You can easily overload a new horse and scare them.

Patch: Explain what you mean by sensory elements.

Kadluboski: Exactly what you’d find at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Amplified music. A drunken person staggering up to the horse. Bounce houses. A little kid pulling on the horse’s tail. Strollers.

Patch: Strollers?

Kadluboski: If you think about strollers from a horse’s point of view, you can see why they might look alarming. They can be big, with one or two children inside, balloons tied to the handlebars and other moving objects hanging off the side. Often, the parents see the horse and literally charge at us, because they’re so eager to show their children the horse.

Patch: I never thought of a stroller as frightening, but I can see it. So how do you train a horse to not shy away from things like strollers and balloons?

Kadluboski: Whether you’re training a horse, training a police officer or training for a marathon, you want to look ahead and experience what might happen to you, be ready for what can happen in reality. We simulate all these experiences with horses in training.

Patch: How do you do this? Do you use strollers and charge at your horses?

Kadluboski: We start with less startling simulations. Earth balls are one training tool that we use. These balls are six feet in diameter, and we train the horse to push them with their shoulders, using a lateral movement. Once they have it, and they usually get it quickly, we use that same movement for crowd control, to gently herd people. Then we gradually work up to bicycles.

Patch: How do you train horses with bicycles?

Kadluboski: You know how kids can come zooming up to you, and then they turn and skid to a halt right beside you?

Patch: You do that to the horses?

Kadluboski: We have to. It’s something they have to be prepared for when we’re in public spaces. Crowds of people, loud music, kids on bikes—our horses have to have experienced all those things before they’re ready for police work.

Patch: You talked about horses gently herding people. Is it difficult for a horse to wade into a crowd of people?

Kadluboski: Again, it’s a matter of training. The most important thing is the trust the horse has in me. That trust takes time; nothing can fill in for the time I’ve spent with Bugsy. When I first got him, I would sit in his stall while he ate. That was 13 garlic festivals ago, and now he’s a seasoned police horse, but in the beginning, his willingness to overcome frightening situations in training depended on his trust in me. There’s mutual respect and trust between the human and the horse.

Patch: Meaning you trust the horse to do what he learned in training.

Kadluboski: Yes. I trust that he’s not going to bolt in a situation that is uncomfortable, and he has confidence that I will stay with him and not let him get hurt. Some situations that might not seem challenging to us can appear threatening to the horse.

Patch: Give me an example of something unexpected that can frighten a horse.

Kadluboski: Ground surfaces. For some horses, it’s a challenge to go from asphalt to concrete to grass, or over a curb. From their perspective, the grass can look like a hole. They step into the grass anyway, trusting that their rider will keep them secure.

Patch: Do you believe that most horses can be police horses, given the proper training?

Kadluboski: There are some horses that aren’t a good fit for the job. You can spot that pretty quickly. If you think about it, dogs have attributes that make them good candidates for police work. Horses, on the other hand, are prey-herd animals. They feel most comfortable as part of a herd, and their defense mechanism is to flee. We are training them against their nature.

Patch: Given that, it’s surprising that more horses don’t fail the training.

Kadluboski: We look for good, solid horses. Not just solid physically, although we do look at their feet, legs and their general health, but stable, trusting animals. In the 13 years I’ve been on the unit, there have been only two horses that clearly weren’t good candidates for the job. As soon as you realize that, you stop training them to be police horses. Our horses have to be able to walk down a street with a semi truck headed at them. On the other extreme, they have to be able to stand for a long period of time.

Patch: Why do they have to stand still for long periods?

Kadluboski: Last week, for example, we were part of a police officer’s memorial in Sacramento. We had to stand for 2½ hours. That’s a long time for a person to stand still, and Bugsy had to stand there holding me and the saddle.

Patch: Do you tend to choose certain breeds of horses for this work?

Kadluboski: Most of our police horses are quarterhorses or thoroughbreds, and we do have two Morgans.

Patch: How did you come up with the name Bugsy?

Kadluboski: His full name is Blue Bugsy Keno, and Bugsy just stuck.

Patch: I like it.

Kadluboski: It’s a good name for a police horse. I think it’s better to have police horses with softer names, versus names like Bullet or Widowmaker. When people ask me his name, and I say “Bugsy,” I get a smile usually.

Patch: Do people respond differently to you when you’re on Bugsy?

Kadluboski: Definitely people react differently than when I’m in uniform on foot, on a bicycle, or in a vehicle. Bugsy is an icebreaker. People who wouldn’t normally ever approach a police officer on foot will stop and ask me Bugsy’s name or how old he is. They forget I’m a police officer and they talk to me as they would to anyone they meet on the street.

Patch: Does Bugsy mind the average person on the street getting close?

Kadluboski: People who don’t know horses are more afraid of his face and will tend to want to pet his flanks. From the horse’s perspective, he wants to see you. But he’s trained to be patient with people. One year at the Garlic Festival, Bugsy kept making small jumps—not moving his feet, but flinching. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I turned all the way around and spotted a very small child yanking on his tail. It bothered Bugsy, but he tolerated it very well.

Patch: So people tugging on his tail, bicycles, loud noises. What else do you train Bugsy to tolerate?

Kadluboski: We teach him to walk over tires, which is difficult for a horse. We use tarps, which can frighten horses on windy days. We use flags, sometimes even draping them over the horse’s head. We try to envision any situation that can come up and use that in training.

Patch: Is the Garlic Festival the biggest week of the year for the Mounted Patrol?

Kadluboski: Yes. We have the Mounted Patrol in Gilroy because of the Garlic Festival. In 1992, there were some problems, mostly caused by gang members from out of town. The festival had to be closed early, which is huge given how important the festival is for Gilroy. At that time, the Gilroy Police Department called in San Jose’s Mounted Patrol, and the following year we began our own Mounted Patrol.

Patch: Why are the horses such a big advantage during the festival?

Kadluboski: Being up high gives us the ability to see what’s going on in a crowd much better than we can at eye level. An officer on foot can see people swarming in or running away from something, but it’s hard to pinpoint what’s happening. On a horse, you often see exactly where a fight begins. You can see two people bump each other, exchange a look. You sometimes see the first throw, what we call an on-view crime. You can keep your eye on the instigator and move in on horseback more easily.

Patch: You would think it would be harder to get through a dense crowd on horseback.

Kadluboski: It’s easier. People move for a horse more readily than they do for an officer on foot. It’s like the parting of the sea. You can do what we call encirclement and move the crowd back, which helps the officers on foot get through to the instigators. We then use a side pass movement to open up the crowd to allow the officers on the ground to escort out the people out of the center of the fight.

Patch: During the Garlic Festival, do you work full shifts on horseback?

Kadluboski: We do. I’m on Bugsy from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day of the festival. We move out there for the weekend, horses and officers both. The horses stay on site, and we stay there with them.

Patch: Do you ever get to attend the Garlic Festival as a civilian?

Kadluboski: I don’t, but given the economy, we feel lucky that we still have a Mounted Patrol. In past few years, San Jose’s Mounted Patrol has cut back quite a bit. San Jose used to have over 12 horses and 10-12 officers that worked for the Mounted Patrol full time. Now they have just two full-time officers in that unit. I am very lucky to be part of our unit and work the festival with Bugsy. 

Patch: Are there many Mounted Patrol units in California? I remember seeing them as a kid but not as much lately.

Kadluboski: In the 1980s through 2000 there were Mounted Patrol units in San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, and Mountain View was beginning a unit. When the economy started to go, horses were the first thing we lost. San Jose cut back, as I mentioned, and San Diego completely got rid of their mounted unit, sold the horses, sold all the tack.

Patch: In Gilroy, the city does not pay the full cost of the horses or their upkeep. You paid for your own horse, right?

Kadluboski: All of the officers in the Gilroy Mounted Patrol own our own horses. The department provides our duty saddle and tack that we use while working, but we buy our own saddle and tack for everyday use. We furnish things like shampoo, hoof picks, the farrier for horse-shoeing, and feed and board for the horse. The city gives each officer with a horse some money to offset the costs, but it doesn’t cover all the expenses.

Patch: This is a huge commitment in time and money.

Kadluboski: It’s pretty big. You have to love horses to want to do it.

Patch: Can any officer who wants to be part of the Mounted Patrol sign up?

Kadluboski: As with any position in the Gilroy Police Department, you have to apply. It’s a collateral position, which means it’s part time and not a full-time position on the police force.

Patch: Do you have any outside help to cover the costs of the Mounted Patrol?  

Kadluboski: This will pay for most of the costs of fixing the arena in Christmas Hill Park where we train and stay with the horses during the Garlic Festival. Denise Jungling is working to start a Friends of the Mounted Patrol organization. These organizations in other parts of the state have helped keep mounted units when they're threatened by budget cuts.

Patch: The detective/investigations part of your job seems like it’s high-stress. Do you find the time you spend working with Bugsy is a counterpoint to that stress?

Kadluboski: I love being in the detective unit; I love my job, but I definitely enjoy those days that I get to be outside working with Bugsy.

Patch: Recently, when you were working on Bugsy downtown, you pulled over a DUI?

Kadluboski (laughing): We did. We saw the driver run up onto the curb, so we had him pull over. Of course, he complied. If he had taken off full-speed, it would have been a different story. And we had to call a patrol car to take him in.

Patch: I guess it’s hard to transport a suspect on horseback. And you have to laugh when you think about the driver who got pulled over by an officer on horseback. Do you think Bugsy likes his job?

Kadluboski: I do. A police horse has to tolerate a lot. Every single Garlic Festival, someone bangs into the back of Bugsy’g legs with a stroller, smacks him in the face with a balloon, pulls his tail. I think he wouldn’t tolerate these things if he didn’t get something out of the work. All of us, horses included, want to feel useful. I believe all of our horses enjoy the work and feel a sense of purpose. Ultimately, if they didn’t want to do the work, they wouldn’t be good at what they do.

Patch: The folks who come out for Gilroy’s Memorial Day Parade will get to see you and Bugsy?

Kadluboski: We are riding in this year’s parade.

Patch: And we’ll see you at the Garlic Festival of course.

Kadluboski: We’ll be there.