‘You don’t want a horse doing the jitterbug when you’re trying to control him.’

Jack Jung is a motorcycle officer with the Valley Traffic Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. He lives on a one-acre spread in Agua Dulce with his wife, Merle; son, Danny, 23; daughter, Kelly, 18, and three horses.

When the idea of volunteering for the horse detail first came up, I wasn’t overly excited about it, but my partner wanted to join. He started telling me more and more about it, and I thought, “What the heck, I’ll give it a try.” At that time I had a quarter horse named Corky.

So I went out to qualify, and both of us were accepted. We went through an intensive 30-day training academy. Believe me, when I came home at night I was tired. Now I can imagine how the cavalry men felt.

I happened to come across Royal through a friend of mine. He invited me out to go horseback riding and said, “Pick the horse you want to ride.” Of course, I walked over to this guy, took one look at his size and said, “I want to ride this one here.” He said, “Are you sure you want to ride him? He’s a little snotty.” I wanted to ride him anyway. He was a thoroughbred and he stood taller than all the quarter horses in the barn.

His full name is Royally True. He was born in 1977 back in Kentucky on a thoroughbred farm. From Kentucky he eventually made his way out here. He raced at Del Mar and Hollywood Park. However, he bowed a tendon on his left front leg and that forced him into retirement.

I saddled him up and took him out into an open field. I figured, well, if I’m going to get thrown off I want something nice and soft when I hit the ground. He got a little ornery, but we eventually had a meeting of the minds. We just found out that we kind of liked one another.

So one day this friend of mine said, “You know, you ought to buy that horse from me.” I looked at him and said, “I can’t afford this horse!” I knew he sold as a colt for something like $45,000. “You can afford him. I’ve had other people ride him and they have problems with him for some reason.” He all but gave me the horse.

I started Royal in the police unit in October of last year. Everybody kind of looked at me and said, “You’re bringing a thoroughbred?”

In our training we expose the horse to anything that he may come in contact with on the streets that would normally scare the daylights out of him. Some horses just freak out.

We have what they call a gauntlet, a chute six to eight feet wide where we have various things like strips of plastic hanging down in front of their face, and officers standing on the side rails waving gunny sacks filled with beer cans and shouting. We have a mattress lying on the ground. Now that doesn’t seem like anything, but you try to get a horse to stand on a mattress, and you’ve got your hands full.

We had a sheet of black plastic spread on the ground. To a horse, the black plastic represents a hole, and they won’t walk on it. So what you’re doing is training the horse to trust you.

At the beginning, Royal was very reluctant. He didn’t want to go in there; he didn’t like what he saw. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the guys were standing there saying, “OK, this is where it’s going to happen, right here!” But I kept coaxing him and eventually got him started into the gauntlet.

By the third time through it, they were waving and shouting to simulate a crowd, and it was no big deal to him anymore. That really made me feel good. Here I’d brought in a thoroughbred and most people figured he’d come apart. He went through this thing like gang busters.

You’re going to have this 1,200-pound horse around little children and mommies, and they can’t move too fast. You don’t want a horse out there doing the jitterbug when you’re trying to control him. Most of the time on my motorcycle I’m making negative contacts with the public, so when I’m on Royal it’s nice and refreshing to have people come to me and want to talk and pet the horse and ask questions.