BROMBOROUGH the police horse has nerves of steel when faced with flying bottles, unruly football fans and rowdy drunks.
But when it comes to having his hair cut, the nine-year-old gelding can be a bit of a wimp.
So his trainers at Merseyside Police have enlisted the help of a professional horse whisperer to help him find the courage to face the barber.
Before Bromborough entered police service a year ago his owner had to sedate him with tranquillizers before clipping him.
Stable staff at Merseyside Police's mounted unit have been forced to only shave off a fraction of his coat at a time, in a process that can take hours instead of minutes.
Lindsay Gaven, 26, stable manager at the unit's base in Allerton, Liverpool, said: "Bromborough does have a few issues with clipping.
"He gets a bit excitable. You can see that he is nervous and a bit upset with the whole thing.
"At the moment we have to put him on a lunge line and then turn the clippers on. We basically turn them off when he stands still.
"We keep doing this until we get close enough to shave a bit of his coat off and then the process starts all over again."
But horse whisperer Michael Peace believes he can cure Bromborough's fear of clippers within hours.
The Oxford-based former jockey is coming to Liverpool later this month to show the mounted unit's ten support staff how best to tackle Bromborough's phobia.
Mr Peace, 36, said he will speak soothingly to the horse and over the course of a few hours slowly familiarise Bromborough with the sound of the clippers.
He said: "Horses are naturally sceptical of things they do not understand and instinctively want to flee.
"We will work incrementally through a process where bit by bit we make something like clippers more acceptable to the horse.
"I would find a distance from the horse where it is not comfortable but will not react by trying to run away. You keep watching the horse's body language and after each exposure to the sound take it for a short walk, which is almost like a coffee break for it."
"Police horses are generally a lot more open to this kind of gentle therapy than competition horses who are highly strung."
Mr Peace has been a professional horse psychologist for about 20 years after being a jockey with Newmarket-based trainers Luca Cumani and
Michael Jarvis. He regularly helps problem horses with the Metropolitan Police and holds demonstrations with forces across the country.
Police horses have their coats clipped four times a year, mainly for appearance but also to keep them cool in the summer.
Bromborough, who is over 17 hands high, is one of 20 horses who carry out night-time patrols across Merseyside and outside Anfield, Goodison Park and Prenton Park on match days.
markhookham@dailypost.co.uk
Sympathetic training system with a long and eminent history
HORSE whispering first shot to prominence in Robert Redford's 1998 directorial effort The Horse Whisperer.
Based on the novel by Nicholas Evans, Redford starred as a cowboy, pictured above, dedicating his life to calming wild horses using the whispering techniques of John Rarey, the original horse whisperer.
In 1858, Queen Victoria summoned Rarey from across the Atlantic in Ohio, America, to calm one of her horses.
By using his whispering techniques depicted in Redford's film, he successfully calmed the horse and word soon spread throughout the country.
He began holding demonstrations where he would lock himself in a stable with violent horses in an attempt to rid them of their problems.
The Victorian nobility were only able to hear a faint whispering sound from inside the stable but once Rarey returned, the horse would be placid and calm.
Horse whispering is now thought to be one of the best techniques for problem horses.
