Gainesville Police welcomed a new horse to their Mounted Patrol Unit Friday.
Bolt, a 7-year-old saddle horse and thoroughbred cross-breed, will be replacing Blue, who retired earlier this year. The department has three other horses: Zeus, Rusty and Merlin.
On Friday afternoon, GPD brought Bolt and Zeus to the front of The Oaks Mall. Parents and their kids stopped, smiled and took pictures. Bolt stood strong and calm in his stuffed reindeer antlers.
“He has a seemingly unending curiosity,” said Tracy Fundenburg, Gainesville Police Corporal.
Bolt’s owners, Christy and David Larson of Alachua, originally tried to sell him. But when the police department approached the couple about allowing the horse to join the force instead, they decided to donate him to GPD.
“Instantly, we were intrigued,” Christy said. “They put him through the testing and he did fantastic, so that’s where we knew he needed to be. It is more important for Bolt to have a good job and a good home than it is for us to have a couple extra dollars in our pocket.”
Bolt joined the department in May and has been working on his 200 hours of required training ever since. Because the Larsons used to participate in mounted shooting competitions, Bolt is used to being around gunfire, a GPD press release said.
Bolt spent three years living with the Larsons.
“He was a huge part of our family,” Christy said. “We miss him, but he’s like your kid who grows up and goes off to college. It was the best thing for him.”
Bolt gets his name from the thick, white strip on the left side of his muscular, coffee-colored body.
When he was younger, Bolt’s full name was Lightning Bolt, Christy said. But one day, while Bolt was hanging out by a tree in a pasture with six other horses, lightening struck. All six horses died except Bolt.
“Lightning Bolt was too close to home,” Christy said. “So now we just call him Bolt.”
Christy’s husband, David, said Bolt was his favorite horse.
“He was my buddy,” he said. “He was always my favorite.”
When it came to opting to donate Bolt instead of selling him, David said it was a no-brainer.
“The horse is what I care about,” he said. “The money I don’t care about. When he was with us, he was just eating hay and getting fat.”
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 12/7/2014]
Gainesville Police Cpl. Tracy Fundenburg, left, sits on police horse Zeus, and GPD Officer Tom Lardner sits on police horse Bolt, outside The Oaks Mall on Friday afternoon. Bolt will replace retired police horse Blue.
