Hanging up the saddle: Four-legged officer from Passaic County retires to Sussex sanctuary

WANTAGE — A 24-year-old American quarter horse stepped out of the trailer Tuesday morning and onto plush, freshly mowed farmland. His golden-flecked chestnut coat glistened in the sun as he stopped to take in the terrain, a place he will live out the rest of his days.

After serving two decades in the Passaic County Sheriff's Office Mounted Unit, Baron retired to Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue in Wantage, a 232-acre piece of paradise where he will join new friends and roam free in a bittersweet end to his time patrolling and serving the residents of nearby Passaic County.

Baron was born in 1998 and joined the division in 2002, and if you ask Passaic County Sheriff Richard Berdnik and a few other top law enforcement officials, the horse proved to be one of the best. The proof: Baron has been in multiple competitions and won a national mounted law enforcement second-place award in 2008.

New recruits in the mounted division would enjoy riding Baron because he is a calm, gentle horse, making him ideal for training, Berdnik said.

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"During the course of working with us, he was probably one of our more favorite horses. He was involved in search and rescue operations, funeral details, patrol activities in the park," Berdnik said. "He was just a great horse."

The one who would know that best is Passaic County Sheriff's Office Detective Sgt. José Cartagena, who graduated from training with Baron in 2005. He and Baron, he said, have a special relationship.

Cartagena, who stood by Baron's side and watched him graze Tuesday morning, gripped his former four-legged partner's lead rope in his hand as he recalled the steps he took to bond with the horse and how it wasn't easy in the beginning.

"When I first started riding with him, it was rough," Cartagena admitted, but he said he worked hard with the horse and established a connection he doesn't think he'll ever have with another horse.

Animals "don't expect anything in return, just trust," Cartagena said, adding that he won't be able to duplicate his experience with Baron.

Cartagena remembered cold nights on patrol with Baron and a day when his horse refused to walk along a certain path — later finding that the horse was protecting them from a large wasps' nest nearby. Cartagena also had a knack for soothing the horse if he became spooked.

Cartagena laughed, though, when he spoke about the Mounted Unit and how being one of few riders in the state raises interesting reactions from everyday citizens.

"I've done arrests with him and I've handcuffed people, and they'd been attached to a lanyard on my saddle, and people would be in shock, saying, 'I can't believe I'm getting arrested by a guy on a horse,' " Cartagena recalled.

The Passaic County Sheriff's Office Mounted Unit has four current horses, although in past years there were more. Cartagena said the profession has declined over the years, with Passaic one of the last operating mounted divisions in the area. Aside from New York City, there are mounted divisions only in Newark and Rockland County, New York, he said. The New Jersey State Police also has a Mounted Unit.

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Horses typically retire from the division when they get a bit older — quarter horses live between 25 and 35 years — and start to slow down or develop issues. Baron has lameness in the front, Cartagena said, which is an abnormal stance or gait that is common as horses age.

Baron will have about 30 acres to explore when the gates are open in his pasture and will be the first horse to graze among the sanctuary's 232 acres, said Mike Stura, founder of Skylands. He'll have friends in three donkeys, Hazel, Sam and Cole, who had a first unofficial meeting with the stallion a few weeks earlier to ensure their personalities meshed.

Stura, a vegan with a knack for rescuing animals in unusual circumstances, has owned the sprawling sanctuary since 2015, and while he has a bond with cows, he admits he had never planned on taking in horses. But rescuing a horse, he said, was just "a matter of time."

"He'll go in there when he wants to," Stura said, pointing to a freshly constructed elongated shed where Baron can seek shelter, "but he doesn't have to do anything. He's free to roam."

The stallion has already come face-to-face over the fence with one of the sanctuary's largest cows, Rosie, and Stura said Baron, well aware he is a large presence among his "human" co-workers, was in awe of the cow's size.

"He ran up to the top of the field and he was snorting, [as if to say] 'I'm big, too, you know!' " Stura said with a laugh.

Stura's knack for saving runaway cows from near-death was how Paterson Animal Control Officer John DeCando knew about him, and knew his sanctuary would be perfect for Baron.

In April, Stura rescued several dairy cows after their owner died and a relative offered them. He also took in Butch, a 9-month-old bull he later renamed Cliff, after officers said the animal got loose and destroyed a mailbox in Stafford Township.

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And there are even more. Since 2016, Stura has taken in escaped cows headed for a New York City slaughterhouse on two separate occasions, as well as one that ran loose on Route 80 in Paterson in the middle of the night. One of those rescued cows, Brianna, who made a daring 8-foot leap from a truck, was pregnant and later gave birth to baby Winter at Stura's farm.

Stura traveled to Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to rescue a bull on the verge of drowning in floodwaters and corralled a cow in New Hampshire that had been on the loose for eight months.

Passaic County Commissioner Pat Lepore presented Stura with a $500 check from Paws in the Park, an annual dog festival, as a donation for his continued work rescuing animals.

Stura, saying he knew Cartagena was a bit emotional leaving his former partner behind, handed over his own gift to the veteran officer: a key to the gate to enter Baron's field.

"He's got a key to visit anytime," Stura said. "He doesn't even have to ask for permission. You can tell they are very bonded. Whether you know it or not ... he was getting choked up."

Lori Comstock can be reached on Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH, on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/LoriComstockNJH or by phone: 973-383-1194.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Passaic County NJ police horse retires to Sussex County sanctuary