Deborah D’Angelo and Richard Pelzer, Skidmore’s own “Mounties,” are on-call officers who work with the college’s Campus Safety office. Their equine partners, Killian and Kodiak, belong to the officers, who manage their board, training, and care. (See a related Scope story here.) Here are some fun facts about them:
STYLE NOTES: Both horses wear vintage World War I McClellan military saddles with wide Y-shaped girths and large leather stirrups.
Google the McClellan and you learn that it’s named for its designer, the Civil War general George B. McClellan. While a captain in the mid-1850s, McClellan adapted it after studying Prussian and Spanish-tree saddles. Jefferson Davis—who was the U.S. secretary of war in those pre-Confederacy years—selected the McClellan for U.S. War Department use in 1859, and it remained standard cavalry issue through World Wars I and II. The McClellan is used nowadays by historical reenactors and for ceremonial events like Commencement.
The saddles are lightweight, with deep seats that look like they’d keep cavalrymen solidly in their saddles during military maneuvers. (McClellans also have a distinctive midline opening running front to back, further lightening their weight.) Killian and Kodiak work in halter/bridles, whose bits can be removed to permit easy grazing, and the horses wear festive-looking bright yellow neck cords that do double duty, serving as lead-lines when riders have time to dismount and let the horses graze.
Like the Skidmore graduates they honor with their presence on Commencement day, the horses get thoroughly spiffed up for the big event. Killian and Kodiak get baths the day before, their manes, fetlocks, and whiskers are trimmed, their feet polished. The next morning, they’re loaded on their trailers by 7:30 a.m. and undergo a final neatening, brushing, and saddling right off the trailer in the SPAC parking lot.
SKILLS: Both horses have undergone rigorous Mounted Police training that taught them to cope with things that would startle or spook most horses—everything from baby carriages, bicycles, umbrellas, and sudden noises to sirens, flashing lights, and even gunfire. So at SPAC each year, the horses stand calmly even when barking dogs rush at them, dozens of people reach out to pet them, and the occasional toddler walks right up to hug their legs.
BIOS:
D’Angelo’s Killian is a 25-year-old chestnut Thoroughbred who stands approximately 16:1 hands tall. (A “hand,” the traditional equine unit of measurement, is four inches.) D’Angelo has owned the big chestnut since he was 13, and they served together in the Warren County Sheriff’s Mounted Unit from 1989 to this year. D’Angelo has been riding for 40 years. She has ridden and shown in both English and Western pleasure styles and competed in barrel racing. Killian is boarded at a friend’s barn.
Pelzer’s Kodiak, a 15-year-old Shire/Percheron cross, weighs 1800-plus pounds. They’ve been partners since Kodiak was two; Pelzer taught the big colt to ride and drive. Kodiak lives at home in Pelzer’s barn.
TASKS ON DUTY: At events like Commencement, explains Pelzer, “We’re there to assist in any way we can. We help with traffic and parking. Sometimes we’re needed to clear space for the grads to walk through. After the ceremony, we do lots of photo-taking”….
–”and sometimes we do a little crowd control. This is a friendly crowd, so ‘crowd control’ means riding quietly up and explaining where we want people to move to.” Pelzer served 33 years with the New York State Park Police, where he started and directed the mounted unit. He retired seven years ago as a sergeant.
“Most people like horses. It’s in the American DNA,” he grins. Nonetheless, in his experience, it’s unique to have the horses at Commencement and other college events. Not many colleges field a mounted unit, Pelzer says, although the idea just might be catching on. “The University of Massachusetts at Amherst just started one, SUNY Albany wants to, and the city of Saratoga Springs has two and wants to add another couple.”
AVAILABILITY:
Skidmore’s mounted escort can be hired, through Campus Safety, to dress up “almost any event,” says Pelzer. The horses are “great public relations, ” adds D’Angelo. Says Pelzer, “The good thing about the horses—when you’re on them, you’re ten feet tall. Makes it much easier to get people’s attention.”
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Photos by Gary Gold and Barbara Melville
