The amazing versatility of horses can sometimes leave you in awe. A recent trip overseas brought that point home. In some places if the horse doesn’t work, the family doesn’t eat; in others horses cope with Molotov cocktails, terrorists, and riots. Italy was the site of the World Equine Veterinary Association (WEVA) conference, a bi-annual gathering of veterinarians from around the globe. The meeting has several purposes, not the least of which is for people from places with higher technology to share with those from less-developed countries. Reports from WEVA will be in the February issue. The second stop on the trip was London, England, home of the largest mounted police unit in the world. The London Metropolitan Mounted Police have about 160 horses on the streets or in training. Their duties are official — crowd control, squelching riots, patrolling London, and guarding the royals (fact: by tradition, only gray horses are used to escort the Queen).

Like most of you who share your free time with equine-related groups, I have a couple of favorite charities. And since Christmas is upon us, perhaps we should be thinking about charitable donations.

One favorite is the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (www.trfinc.org), a national group that rescues Thoroughbreds and either gives them permanent homes at prisons where the inmates are schooled in their care, or adopts the horses out to good homes. Another group is the mounted police.

Any rider who has nearly been unseated by a  horse “spooked” by something minor probably stops in wonder seeing police horses on busy streets. Trucks and cars whiz by within inches of their rumps, and they never move