ONE OF Glasgow’s finest has retired after 18 years on the beat – Iona, a police horse will literally be put out to grass after a busy working life.

The veteran of many a demonstration and football match, and Scotland’s longest serving police horse is now 22 and is off to a new home in the rolling Chiltern hills. The Glasgow-based horse has served her community well, but now it’s time for her well-earned retirement at The Horse Trust’s Home of Rest, in Buckinghamshire.

The 17hh bay mare has regularly been deployed with less experienced police riders at big events and lately she has been an escort horse, introducing Police Scotland’s new horses to patrol work, football and public order duties, and as a ‘teacher’ for officers joining the mounted section.

Iona was the first horse allocated to PC Claire Hunter, who said: “Iona has impeccable manners and isn’t fazed by the situation, she loves the public and really enjoys humans making a fuss of her.”

This almost perfect example of a hard-working police does have one failing though – she can’t stand cows!