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Eight-year-old Josiah Sehl of Stafford County had a loud job to do yesterday, and he approached it with all his lung.
Josiah was one of dozens of volunteers working the obstacle-course portion of the 19th annual Police Equestrian Competition, held this year at the Fredericksburg Fairgrounds. His task was to scare the bejabbers out of seasoned police horses.
Inside a moon bounce that was one of 10 obstacles set up to challenge horses and riders, Josiah shrieked and sprang on cue.
Many of the 112 horses--trained and tested by years of police service in departments as far away as Toronto--are unfazed by traffic and riots and gunfire.
But Josiah was another matter.
The freckled Cub Scout from Stafford got the job because his mother, Donna Sehl, is a part-time 911 communications officer for the meet's host, the Fredericksburg Police Department.
"My mom told me the rules first," Josiah said as he sipped a Coke during a short break. "I know when to scream and stuff, and jump around."
The bouncing, bellowing boy was just one of the challenges designed to approx-imate real mounted-police situations.
To enter the competition ring, horses had to push a "riot ball," sort of a beach ball on steroids, that blocked the gate.
Once in the ring, mounted officers had to write a parking ticket and put it on a van's windshield. They had to speak to a person on a park bench who suddenly threw off a yellow tarp.
They had to walk their horses over a metal grate. Then horses and riders had to stand calmly beside the slamming sliding door of a beer truck.
Josiah and the moon bounce were next; the horses had to walk around the boy dynamo without stepping away.
Once past that challenge, officers had to stop, dismount, pick up a wallet and remount. Then they stood their horses next to the flashing lights and siren of a police car.
The officers had to maneuver their mounts next to a lidded trash barrel, throw in a paper bag and shut the lid. Finally, they had to weave their horses through a line of burning traffic flares.
Many of the day's challenges run counter to common horse sense.
Success hinged on horses' and riders' composure, training and trust.
Those qualities were evident as Officer Darla Hoff of the New Castle County Police Department in Delaware worked the course with her dark bay mare, Chelsea.
In 10 years as a police horse--almost half her 21 years--Chelsea has unflappably carried officers patrolling high-crime areas and festivals. She's let hundreds of sticky-handed children pet her velvet nose. And she's learned to ignore loud noises like sirens or gunshots.
Josiah didn't faze her a bit.
In fact, Chelsea wasn't perturbed by anything except walking across the metal grate. Even so, she trusted Hoff. After one false start, Chelsea did as asked and walked right over, touching with all four hooves.
Horses fell apart at different phases of the competition. Some were stymied right away by the riot ball, which tests the horse's willingness to calmly push through an obstacle. Some were fine with everything except the barrel, which they eyed as if they expected it to explode.
Henrico County sheriff's dep-uty Ronald Brooks, riding Danny, struggled with that one. Danny would get almost close enough, then skitter away just as Brooks reached for the lid.
"I know I'm supposed to be the long arm of the law," Brooks cracked to the audience. Finally, he gave up on that obstacle altogether, at exactly the moment Danny let out a sarcastic-sounding whinny.
Still, many officers said they could have kept their horses calm throughout if they hadn't had to face Josiah in the moon bounce.
"That kid is the worst obstacle," said Anthony Mazzeo, an officer from Bergen County, N.J., who rode a Morgan horse named Spanky. "He's the worst, I'm telling you."
Still, there was a note of admiration in Mazzeo's voice.
"Here's a kid who has control over adults with guns," he said with a smile. "What kid doesn't love that?"
The competition, held yesterday and Saturday, went on even as law-enforcement officers in several Virginia, Maryland and Washington localities were on alert because of a string of sniper attacks.
Some out-of-town officers said holding the equestrian competition as planned--just miles from the Spotsylvania County scene of a fatal shooting Friday--was an act of defiant normality.
"It's a concern, but I'm not going to let some schmuck stop my life," said Mazzeo of Bergen County. He drew a parallel between the shootings and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The response in both cases, he noted, is to refuse to be paralyzed by fear.
"That's what makes us so special in this country," he said. "You just keep on going."
Because the Fredericksburg Police Department was this year's host, the city's mounted police--Officer Jim Shelhorse, Lt. Adam Johnson and Cpl. Bill Hallam--didn't compete.
The top individual competitors in the obstacle course were: Ron Gilbert of Toronto, 10th; E.M. Setting of New Castle County, Del., ninth; Kristopher McCarthy of Toronto, eighth; Jill Vorgity of Philadelphia, seventh; Gina Smith of Lexington, Ky., sixth; Gaye Collins of Bergen County, N.J., fifth; Harold Williamson of Toronto, fourth; Thomas Fick of Albany, N.Y., third; and Andy Guyton of New Castle County, second.
The first-place winner, from New York's Rochester Police Mounted Patrol, might have been born to lead this competition, barring a leg cramp.
His name? Charlie Horst.