One of Santa Maria’s Town Center East shopping plazas felt like the Old West to two police officers who chased down a suspected shoplifter outside of Big 5 Sporting Goods last summer.
“We were actually in a hoof pursuit,” Santa Maria Police Department officer Jessica Rubio recalled, while sitting on her patrol horse named Buddy.
Rubio and fellow officer Jesus Caro—the two founding members of the department’s Mounted Enforcement Unit—were trotting along some parking lots as part of their beat one day when a manager of Santa Maria’s Big 5 flagged them down to report a theft that had just taken place.
“We went to investigate, and sure enough we saw [someone] around the corner stuffing items in a backpack that he just stole,” Rubio said. “We confronted him, and he took off running from us.”
The multi-block pursuit ended with the suspect’s arrest in a residential neighborhood nearby.
“We can trot behind a suspect for blocks and blocks at a time,” said Caro, whose horse’s name is Zeus. “Our primary focus on that one was to just keep an eye on the suspect while the guys in the police cars come in and take custody.”
While incidents like the Big 5 collar demonstrate the mounted unit’s prowess in patrol and enforcement tactics, the division’s biggest strength is a horse of a different color, Rubio explained.
“This gives people a reason to come up and talk to us,” said Rubio, who described the unit’s main goal as encouraging public engagement.
“When we’re walking down the street, people actually run out of their houses. In a patrol car, we wouldn’t get that,” she said. “People don’t want to come up to a patrol car.”
Formed as a two-member team in 2023, the mounted unit’s size recently doubled with the addition of two more officers, Neil Medrano and Kevin Ochoa, and their two steeds, Duke and Crow, respectively.
All four officers bought their own horses out of pocket and are personally responsible for feeding, housing, and shoeing them.
“If you want to be part of it, you have to show that you’re committed and willing to put forth the effort,” said Rubio, who was part of the Stockton Police Department’s mounted unit before joining the Santa Maria Police Department about three years ago.
While pitching the idea to the Santa Maria department, she used Stockton’s unit and similar mounted patrols across the state as examples of agencies with budget constraints that require officers to purchase their own horses privately.
“I know some agencies buy their horses, … but we’re just not there yet,” Rubio said. “We’re hoping that in the future the department will buy the horses, that they’ll buy the food, that they’ll buy the supplies.”
Rubio said the annual cost of feed per horse is about $7,000, while boarding is around $350 monthly at the stables in Nipomo where each of the four officers house their horses.
A role in the mounted unit takes a time commitment as well, said Ochoa, whose first day of deployment with the mounted unit was Oct. 9. Like his three peers, Ochoa has an assigned role with the Police Department that’s separate from his work with the mounted unit, which is considered a part-time collateral assignment.
When there’s time to break away from his full-time role as a detective in the department’s special victims unit, Ochoa can dedicate some of his work hours to horseback patrol.
“It’s a good icebreaker,” said Ochoa, who appreciates the conversations he’s had so far with Santa Maria residents—especially parents and their kids—who approach him to pet or ask about his horse, Crow, or casually voice what’s on their minds.
“If people see us out there, we want to talk to them,” he said, “to hear about people’s problems in their neighborhoods or businesses.”
Like Ochoa, Medrano’s horse-riding experience was limited to a couple of recreational trail riding outings before he showed interest in joining the mounted unit about a year ago—unlike both of the unit’s founding members who grew up with horses.
“I rode horses when I was little, and this literally gave me the opportunity to bring a passionate hobby into work,” Rubio said.
One of the mounted unit’s long-term goals is to form a nonprofit to help offset some monetary costs tied to running it, Rubio said.
In the meantime, the Santa Maria Police Council remains a consistent source of financial support and donations, Caro explained.
“Since the establishment of the unit, the Santa Maria Police Council has helped out tremendously,” said Caro, who listed saddles, horse tack, and deployment gear as items the council either donated or covered the costs of.
The council recently announced “an account where they put money aside for us, aimed at growing the unit,” Caro added.
During its latest fundraiser event in June, the council unveiled the Jim Glines Memorial Endowment to benefit the Police Department’s mounted unit in honor of Glines (1942-2025), a longtime Police Council member “who wouldn’t hesitate to vote yes” on funding opportunities for the unit, Caro said.
The Sun reached out to Police Council Executive Director Mike Gibson for info on the new endowment but didn’t receive a response before press time.
One of the council’s biggest contributions to the mounted unit is the truck and trailer that the Police Department uses to transport the horses, most frequently from their stables in Nipomo to the police station.
The truck and trailer also come in handy when the unit travels for periodic workshops—with admission fees partly covered by the Police Council—centered on training exercises designed for mounted patrol agencies in different parts of California. In September, the unit roadtripped to Norco for a weeklong training camp hosted by the Western States Mounted Officers Association.
While the unit’s two new officers gained needed certifications at the camp, Rubio and Caro attended to advance their skills, specifically in exercises to maintain control of their horses during challenging scenarios.
The camp ended with a competitive obstacle course, which Caro’s horse, Zeus, won first place in.
“It’s about 23 different obstacles, and it’s timed. It’s about precision and speed,” Caro said.
The course was surrounded by traffic cones, each topped with a tennis ball, Caro explained. Points were deducted from competing horses’ scores depending on how many cones or tennis balls fell while they maneuvered through the track.
Throughout the challenge, there were sensory obstacles as well, such as smoke, sirens, fireworks, the firing of blanks, and a helicopter that would swoop in at low altitudes to try to distract the horses.
“You come into a really tight area, and your horse makes some really tight turns. … You have to be fast and precise. You have to find the right combination,” Caro said. “Zeus was solid.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 16 – Oct 23, 2025.