Peace officers mount up for Waco training conference

By MANDY JOHN | Central Texas Edition

Nancy Robichaux, founder of The United Mounted Peace Officers of Texas, explains to conference participants the importance of having a standardized training for handling horses. -Staff photo by John

November 28, 2002 -- The United Mounted Peace Officers of Texas (TUMPOT) met Nov. 14-17 for their fifth annual training conference at Bentwood Farms in Waco. Nancy Robichaux, patrol officer with the Hopkins County Sheriff's Department and founder of the association, was on-hand to help the mounted officers improve their skills with the horses.

"We have been in existence since 1997. I called all 254 police departments and drove to all the units in the state to discuss the possibility of starting this organization," explained Robichaux. "Everybody in the posse must go through the standardized training that is offered. We do this because it's important to have this training so that everybody knows what to do when a situation arises. My philosophy is we have a standardized training for using a weapon, we should also have one for handling horses."

She said that in 1998 Texas A&M joined TUMPOT to help with the trainings and McLennan Community College, located in Waco, just recently joined the organization to help with future trainings.

"There are a few key players and organizations that have helped make this into the great organization that it is. Lt. Don Curry from Houston, Capt. Donnie Allen from Galveston, and Sgt. Roy Reido from Houston have encouraged me through this and have been a great help. My husband has been very supportive of me through this whole endeavor. Also, I am grateful to Mike Howard of McKinney. He is a former Secret Service agent who has helped us with the training. We are also being supported by some great organizations in this state.

"This is the first time we have had this training in Waco. Usually, we have it in Athens or Odessa. It was great to have it there because it was close to everyone, being in Central Texas. We did discuss making Waco our state conference location at our last board of directors meeting and there was a positive reaction about this suggestion.

"What we do at the conference is we bring together officers, posse members and other people to work with mounted law enforcement. They go through different trainings, such as crowd control. Our main goal is to train the horse not to be distracted by anything that can happen when they are working and also to train the rider on how to handle the horse."

Robichaux stated that many riders own horses, but might not know a lot about them. She said a lot of things that horses do is out of natural instinct, but the rider doesn't know that - so they punish their horse.

"We should not be in control of the animal, we should be in partnership with them. There are better ways to train a horse than what was taught in the past. This new way of training is called natural horsemanship. We want the riders to get information when they are taking the training that will help them learn how to control their horse without using physical punishment.

"One thing I do as soon as the training starts is I tell them to take the bits out of the horse's mouth. They think I am crazy for doing this, but it's all part of the training. When I tell them they can't have spurs on during the training, they think I am even crazier. But, by the fourth day of this training they understand because they are learning how to rider with a lighter horse.

"By the end of the training, the rider tells me that they are riding a different horse, because it's so much better. What they don't realize is by educating the rider, the horse has a different rider, which is why it's better.

"Of the 102 TUMPOT members, 98 percent of them are not peace officers. They are just your ordinary, everyday, tax paying responsible citizen who has decided to take a stand and help their community."

One future project that Robichaux is proud of is the discussion of having a facility to teach at-risk kids about how to ride a horse, as well as how to mentor other at-risk kids.

"Texas is fast becoming the number one state with juveniles who are being incarcerated. Drugs are now dominating the rural areas, not just the cities. We hope to impact these kids' lives now, so that this trend doesn't get worse."

For more information about The United Mounted Peace Officers of Texas, contact Nancy Robichaux at 903-857-2403 or e-mail her at umpoot@lcii.net. You may also visit the website at: www.tumpot.org.