NSW Police Mounted Unit Heritage Highlight
NSW Mounties at the Show
In 1901, moved on from their Belmont Park barracks to make way for the construction of Central Railway Station, the NSW Mounted Police Unit found a temporary home at the RAS Showground at Moore Park. In 1907 they relocated to their newly completed stables at Redfern and in that year also performed their first formal ‘Musical Ride’ at the Royal Easter Show – the beginning of a long and lovely tradition.
While the Mounted Unit had already performed a drill and sword display at the 1895 Easter Show, it wasn’t until 1907 that the NSW Police Band was added to the performance. The crowds were entranced by the spectacle of the intricate riding routines set to music.
The ‘Ride’ is a series of drill and dressage movements done at various paces from a walk, to a trot, to a gallop. Complicated manoeuvres by up to 18 riders and their horses are performed in time to music provided by the combined Police Military and Pipe Bands. Long-time Show contributor and ‘Show Legend’ for 2005, Don Eyb, was a former Commander of the NSW Mounted Police and an intensely proud ‘Mountie’. He recalled how at his first ride in the Sydney Show he had to ‘make up the official escort for the Governor to open the Show and that was the biggest thing I’d ever been involved in… Talk about nervous, coming off a farm in the bush and riding in the Show’. Don went on to become leader of the ‘Musical Ride’ and during 44 years of diligent service in the NSW Mounted Police, he rode in over 300 musical ride performances. The trick he recalled was the band following the tempo of the horses rather than the other way around (click here to listen to an extract from an oral history interview with Don in 2010).
As well as performing, the Mounted Police had always appeared at the Show to patrol crowds and from 1970, to serve as escorts for dignitaries in the horse-drawn caleche. In 1959, in appreciation of the long and successful partnership with the Mounties during the Show, RAS President Mr Sam Hordern presented the Commissioner of Police with ‘RAS’ – a beautiful unbroken bay gelding who joined their stables and was transformed into a fully trained police horse by the following year. Since then, further namesakes have periodically replaced the original ‘RAS’ and have continued to represent the close bond between the two organisations.
In 2025 the NSW Mounted Police Unit, the oldest continuously operational mounted unit in the world, celebrates 200 years of public service. The last country police horse ‘Barney’ was replaced in 1962 (in the regional town of Bellbrook) by a more practical all-weather police vehicle, a Land Rover. However, luckily, around the city today and annually during the Royal Easter Show, we can all still delight in the sight of Mounties on parade as they mesmerise and delight with their equine beauty and discipline.