Students from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary read to Love Bug, a deputized mini-horse from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Patrol Unit, May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Benelli, left, and Love Bug, the deputized mini-horse, from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Patrol Unit, and other horses from the unit, visited children from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary School May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Lt. Anselmi and his horse Benelli, from the Arapahoe County Sheriff Mounted Patrol Unit, speaks to children from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary School May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. The children read Lt. Anselmi’s new children’s book The Happy Police Horse to horses from the mounted unit. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Love Bug, a deputized mini-horse from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Patrol Unit, May 6, 2021, and other horses from the unit visited children from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary School to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Students from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary read to Love Bug, a deputized mini-horse from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Patrol Unit, May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Students from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary read to Love Bug, a deputized mini-horse from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Patrol Unit, May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Students from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary read to Savannah, a horse from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Patrol Unit, May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Lt. Anselmi and his horse Benelli, from the Arapahoe County Sheriff Mounted Patrol Unit, speaks to children from Red Hawk Ridge Elementary School May 6, 2021, to kick off a new reading program for elementary school children. The children read Lt. Anselmi’s new children’s book The Happy Police Horse to horses from the mounted unit. Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
AURORA | First graders at Red Hawk Ridge Elementary School were off to the races, putting their reading skills to the test by reading aloud to horses from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Mounted Horse Unit, Thursday, May 6.
Six horses arrived to the elementary school to give a listen to the new children’s book, The Happy Police Horse, which was written by Lt. Rich Anselmi and illustrated by Deputy Mateo Montoya-Collis, both with the sheriff’s department.
The event is part of a new reading to horses program being put on by the Mounted Horse Unit, which kicked off this week. The deputies and their horses plan to visit other schools within Arapahoe County during the next few months.