About Us
Joe Cummings - Owner/ Lead Instructor
Sergeant Joe Cummings retired from the Parker, Colorado Police Department as a Patrol Sergeant and Mounted Unit Supervisor after 25 years. He has a total of over 38 combined years in Law Enforcement with the majority being uniformed patrol. He served almost 10 years as a SWAT Sniper and Team Leader with a multi-jurisdictional SWAT team and is currently a Master Firearms Instructor who teaches at a local police academy. Joe is also a Colorado POST full-skills instructor.
Joe began riding horses in his late teens and has ridden and competed locally in many disciplines including reining, working cow horse, team penning, western pleasure, English pleasure, and classical
and western dressage. He has written articles including Policeone.com and won a national writers award for an article published by the United States Dressage Federation.
Sergeant Cummings helped start his agencies Mounted Patrol unit in 2016. He is an accredited Mounted Police Instructor and has ridden at the Mounted Police Seminar with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride. In 2019 Joe was recognized as a subject matter expert by the Colorado State Legislature and assisted in passing Colorado House Bill 1180, the Police Horse Protection Act which was signed into law.
Joe is a DOJ/ICITAP contractor who has traveled to Kiev and Kharkov, Ukraine as part of an international police horse training team. He has ridden horses in Spain and trained in France at L'Academie Nationale de Gardes Equestres in the system of Bajutsu Special Police, a system of mounted defense and arrest control and the use of the safety strap, where he received certification.
Joe is continuing to instruct for several Denver Metro area mounted patrol units and is a member for the Colorado Mounted Law Enforcement Association and board member for the North American Mounted Commanders Association.
Larry Murphy - Instructor
Larry Murphy retired from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office after 22 years of service. Larry was assigned to the Mounted Unit in a “core deputy” capacity from 1998 until his retirement in 2017. During his tenure with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Mounted Unit, the unit patrolled high crime areas as directed, enforced applicable statutes, provided law enforcement services in remote areas, assisted in fugitive searches, evidence searches, crowd management as well as search and rescue.
As a core Mounted Unit Deputy, Larry was responsible for coordinating and conducting Mounted Unit Training both for the EPSO and other mounted units in the Colorado Front Range area. Larry was certified as a mounted police instructor in 2000. Since that time, he has been the lead instructor for mounted police schools that included personnel from multiple Colorado agencies as well as personnel from New Mexico and Montana.
In addition to graduating with honors from the Geiser Equine Mounted Police Instructor School, Larry graduated from both the Geiser Equine Basic and Refresher Mounted Police Courses. Prior to attending the Geiser Mounted Police Courses, Larry had the privilege of attending the Mounted Police Academy instructed by James Weisbeck. In addition to his mounted law enforcement duties Larry has enjoyed the several opportunities to assist other agencies in starting their own mounted units. Larry has also been recognized as a subject matter expert by the Colorado State Legislature and has been retained as an expert consultant in a court of law.
Rich Anselmi- Youth / Volunteer Programs Coordinator
Lieutenant Rich Anselmi has served with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office since 2000. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Rich completed his military service and joined the Sheriff’s Office after the tragedy at Columbine with hopes of positively impacting his home town community. With the Sheriff’s Office he has served in numerous positions to include patrol, investigations, SRO, SWAT team, Bomb Squad, and he is a firearms and active shooter response instructor. He is a basic equestrian skills instructor for the Westernaires, an all youth, mounted drill team. As the commander of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office Mounted Unit since 2020, Rich used his experience with the Westernaires as well as experience as an SRO, explorer advisor, and high school coach to create a volunteer program which works with the Sheriff’s Office mounted unit on patrols and at events. Unlike any other program in the country, this volunteer program employs youths, as young as 14 years old, to ride with mounted deputies on patrols. Rich has also started numerous school related programs using the mounted unit, most notably are crosswalk duties (mounted), and the reading to horses program. Rich teaches courses on volunteer and youth integration in law enforcement mounted units.
Annette Brown
Annette is our Office Manager and when she is not keeping Joe on track, she works as a Report Technician at the Police Department. She offers ground support and rides her black quarter horse "Cash". Annette grew up on a farm in Illinois. Her love for animals is obvious and she spoils them all, large and small. Annette keeps things running behind the scenes and helps with clinics, training, and photography.