Trainer of LAPD Equestrian Unit to Be Remembered

A tribute to Clyde S. Kennedy, founding trainer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Mounted Unit who taught horsemanship to the three dozen officers who formed the original group in 1981, has been scheduled in Santa Barbara.

A professional trainer, Kennedy voluntarily supervised the officers who used their own horses and money to start the unit. By the time of the 1984 Olympic Games, the squad had grown to 70 members. The unit was used for crowd control at the Olympics and Raider football games, and for a time patrolled Downtown streets as a public relations gesture.

Kennedy died May 26 at age 76 in Paso Robles, where he moved after leaving Burbank.

He developed the unit to a point where by 1987 the LAPD was able to justify furnishing horses and equipment for the officers.

Kennedy, whose father owned stables in Burbank and trained racehorses, was stock horse champion rider at the L.A. National Horse Show in 1947 and ’49 and in 1963 was named American Horse Show Assn. Horseman of the Year. Kennedy was selected California Horseman of the Year in 1990.

The tribute is scheduled Saturday at the Earl Warren Showgrounds. Contributions in Kennedy’s name are asked to be sent to the Officer Charles Heim Fund, c/o Getzoff Accounting, 16255 Ventura Blvd., Encino 91436. Heim, who died in 1994, is the only mounted officer ever killed in the line of duty. The fund is for his two children.