Sergeant Mark Medwid of the Cleveland Mounted Police Unit held the reins of Jakar, one of the horses in the stable and said all the Cleveland horses were ready to participate in the inauguration parade of President Donald Trump.
"The horses have to be able to stand and have to be able to carry a flag," said Medwid. "And they have to be able to work together."
Jakar and four other horses in the unit are to walk past the reviewing stand of President Trump. The Cleveland Mounted Police Unit marched in the parade, marking the sixth time it has been invited for an inauguration since 1921.
Among those who will watch closely for the five Cleveland Police riders and their horses will be two who participated in two inaugurations but are now retired from the Cleveland force. Ray Sminchak and Mary Catherine Barron hugged each other when she met him at the WEWS News 5 television studios. Sminchak is a security guard at the television station.
They met for a television interview about how they remember the presidential inaugurations of 1985 and 1989 when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush took their oaths of office. The 1985 inauguration parade was canceled because of cold weather. "Our horses were freezing; we were freezing," said Sminchak, as he showed a photograph taken of riders in the saddle in Washington DC.
Instead of parading, the participants who would have marched in the parade met in a special area where they were introduced. Four years later, Cleveland Mounted Police Unit was back in Washington. In 1989, the weather was much better for a parade. Barron and Sminchak were assigned to ride next to each other. "I just said a hail Mary and hoped I didn't screw up," laughed Barron. "I didn't want to fall off. All of us just wanted to look good," she added.
Sminchak agreed although his horse was anxious about the bass drum of the Ohio State University marching band which was behind the Cleveland police unit in the parade. "When the band started playing and he heard that bass drum, he had to see what was playing so we started going up the street sideways," remembered Sminchak.
Barron said it was at that point, the riders pulled their horses closer together in a straight line and that helped keep the horses moving forward with their heads pointed forward.
As the two went through old photographs and newspaper clippings of their times in Washington for the inaugurations of two presidents, smiles on their faces showed they were nostalgic for those days. When the Trump presidential parade was broadcast on television, both said they would be watching closely. "And I'll be watching forour guys, too," said Sminchak.
The unit began more than 100 years ago. In recent years, the numbers of horses has declined. When Sminchak and Barron paraded, there were eight horses in the unit. Now there are five. Both retired police officers would like to see increased numbers. Still, they relish the invitation the Cleveland unit received to march again in the parade.
Do they miss their old jobs, which each spent 20 years on the back of horses? "Oh, I miss it everyday," Barron. "I miss the horses."
