This year’s Kentucky Derby drew 147,406 people to Churchill Downs, most of whom were soaked by persistent rain as they awaited an impressive performance by eventual winner Sovereignty. No matter what they paid for their tickets though, very few of them had as great a view of the race as Deputy Taya Workum. 

Workum works full-time job as a deputy sheriff for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in Lake County, Ohio, but she also serves the department part-time as a mounted patrol officer. Ahead of this year’s Derby, the Louisville (Kentucky) Metro Police Department reached out to nearby jurisdictions with mounted police units to get extra help for crowd control. Workum and her husband Matthew Byers, also a police officer, were only too happy to load up their horses and hit the road. 

While larger, full-time mounted police units often own their horses, smaller units rely on the officers having their own mounts. Workum’s partner is Crossed Sabres, fondly known as “Sabre” or “Boo.” Sabre is a Shire/Dutch Warmblood cross, purchased by Workum a decade ago when he was 4 years old with police work in mind. 

Since then, Workum and Sabre have assisted the Governor General’s Horse Guards with dignitary escorts in Canada, have served as the caparisoned (i.e. riderless) horse at military and police funerals, and presented the colors at the Dressage at Devon (Pennsylvania) before the Grand Prix freestyle.

Sabre’s only drawback? 

“He’s 17.3. He’s amazing, but entirely too large,” said Workum. “I’m 5’7”. I always laugh when people say their horses are bigger than they are.

“It’s the getting off part that’s hard, Especially with a bunch of gear around my waist.”

Other than his size, Sabre is a perfect fit for Workum, and for police work. The sights and sounds of the race day at Churchill were nothing new for him, including the crowds, fleets of school buses moving racegoers, or the racehorses who would thunder by Sabre and his colleagues. Very few things worry Sabre, Workum said, with the exception of hollow, air-filled wacky waving tube men (understandably). Though there were none of those at Churchill, Workum said Sabre did find one thing he initially wasn’t sure about.

“You know those little cement horses? We had to stop at the building where the track vet is to drop off our paperwork and they have these horses painted to look like Mystik Dan, who won last year,” said Workum. “Those were so suspicious. He did not know what to do with himself, staring at them sideways.”

True to his nature, Sabre moved on after a few snorts and went back to work. 

Workum and Byers, aboard his mare, Opal, were tasked with crowd control, walking through the neighborhoods near the track, through the barn area on the backstretch, and the exit tunnel of the famously raucous infield. Mounted police are often selected for crowd control assignments because they can see over large groups of people, the horses encourage people to engage positively with the officers, and—as Workum put it—just seeing the officers on patrol seems to act as a deterrent to anyone getting too out of hand. 

During the Derby itself, Workum and Byers were able to stand just behind the outside rail of the track going into the final turn, which gave them the unique thrill of the field running by a stone’s throw away. The only downside to such close access was that they couldn’t see the finish line, and they were standing at an angle to the large jumbotron.

“He loves watching the horses run by,” Workum said. “He sees them coming. His ears are up. He watches them go by, and then looks down, trying to figure out where they went.

“They go around and it all goes quiet. So when they start coming back, we’re asking everyone, ‘Who won?!’ ”

Workum said she tunes into the Derby from home most years, and always picks one horse she thinks has a good chance of winning, and one with a good name. This year, her choices were Sandman and Flying Mohawk, respectively. Unfortunately, neither hit the board, but like many racing fans, she’s excited to see a rematch later this year between Sovereignty and runner-up Journalism.

When he’s not taking Workum to high-profile events, Sabre does dressage with one of Workum’s friends, showing third level and schooling fourth, and has also done schooling jumper shows up to 1.0 meter with Workum. 

Next year, Workum expects they will assist with crowd management at the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event. 

“I’m so blessed,” she said. “I get to do all these cool things with my very cool horse.”