By Valerie Kalfrin
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA, Fla. - A day after a driver struck him and his horse in Ybor City, mounted patrol Officer Salvatore Mazza couldn’t help but kick himself.
“I feel kinda bad because I failed that night,” Mazza said Monday, holding the reins of D’artagnon, his equine partner of three years. “It’s my job to look out for him.”
Mazza, 39, and the 15-year-old male quarter horse wound up on the hood of a Buick about 3:30 a.m. Sunday while directing traffic at East Eighth Avenue and North 19th Street, Tampa police said. Police said the driver was drunk and ran into the partners.
“He hit us so hard, it picked the horse up and landed us on the hood of the car. I hit the windshield. It got fuzzy from there,” Mazza said.
Mazza thinks his helmet and the horse’s size - D’artagnon weighs about 1,100 pounds - probably saved him from serious injury.
“My neck’s stiff; my back’s stiff; my knee’s stiff,” Mazza said. “I tell you, if I wasn’t on top of the horse, I definitely would’ve been a lot worse than I am now.”
D’artagnon, also known as Dar, has minor swelling on his right side, a scrape on his right shoulder and a scrape on his right knee where “the bumper caught his leg,” Mazza said.
He is recovering nicely and should be back on duty Thursday night, directing crowds at Raymond James Stadium and later in Ybor City, said Cpl. Mike Morrow, the mounted patrol’s supervisor.
On Monday, as Mazza described the ordeal, the horse munched grass and snorted.
“Obviously his appetite hasn’t gone,” Mazza said.
D’artagnon has been with Tampa police since 2000, when a Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy donated him to the department. He and Mazza, a 13-year veteran, have worked together for three years.
They’ve encountered odd situations, such as people slapping the horse, but nothing like what happened Sunday, Mazza said.
The officer said he was trying to divert traffic from East Eighth Avenue and North 19th Street onto Palm Avenue when he turned his head to check a car approaching from behind. When he turned around, he saw the Buick headed right for them at about 30 mph.
“There was no time to react,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is not good. This is gonna hurt.’”
Mazza said he didn’t remember the horse sliding off the car. Witnesses told him the horse crumpled to the ground, then stood, stunned. They also told Mazza the reins never left his hands.
Police charged the Buick’s driver, Arleis Perez, 20, of Brandon, with misdemeanor driving under the influence after his blood alcohol level registered 0.215 and 0.21, jail records show. Florida law presumes a driver is intoxicated at 0.08.
Mazza said he bears the driver no ill will. “He stopped. He checked on me. He made sure I was OK,” he said. “Whenever people get intoxicated, they don’t use the best judgment.”
Copyright 2007 Tampa Tribune