Rescued foal turns into law enforcement celebrity – Meet Miss Miami!

Dressage rider Anna Niehaus was at a college football game when she had an epiphany that resulted in a 21-year career in law enforcement for a horse she rescued. Miss Miami was one of Miami’s longest-serving and most-valued police horses, retired now at the age of 26.

Miss Miami and Lt. Redondo on the clock in Miami. Photo courtesy of Miami Police Department.

“It was the University of Miami playing Florida, the Gators. And that was a big game,” Anna recalled. “And just as we were going in, I saw these police horses standing in front of the stadium and I thought, oh my God, this is what my horse should be doing.”

Miss Miami was a rescue foal from a PMU farm – where pregnant mares’ urine was turned into medication and foals were slaughtered. Anna gave the foal a home and called her Legacy. She quickly realized she was not a dressage prospect.

“She was super easy to break and she was just so easy going with everything,” said Anna. “Nothing could bother her. She loved to go on trail rides, but dressage was not her thing. So she could have gone and done a lot of different things really but I really felt like this was so perfect for her, for who she was.”

Starting out her life under saddle – Anna soon realized the mare was not for dressage.

Anna met with two officers who took Legacy on to the force and according to Anna, “got an earful from their boss as she was a mare and they only had geldings.” So they renamed her Miss Miami, after the town in which over the years she became quite the celebrity with the Chief of Police riding her round the streets and regularly to his favorite coffee bar.

Celebrity status! Miss Miami was a well-known member of the city’s law enforcement.

“The horses are taken care of like royalty until the day that they die,” said Anna. “And that was important to me. Considering where she originally came from, I wanted her to have the best home ever, and she does.”

The extent of care given to the horses was epitomized earlier this year, when Miss Miami, about to head towards retirement, started to colic. The Miami PD did not hesitate in shipping her up to Wellington, to be cared for by Palm Beach Equine Clinic and Dr. Weston Davis DVM, DACVS, who saved her life with emergency surgery to combat a strangulating lipoma, a small, benign, fatty tumor that develops within the abdomen and occasionally develops a long, string-like stalk. The lipoma and stalk can wrap around a part of the horse’s digestive system, cutting off the blood supply and resulting in death of that section of intestine.

Miss Miami at Palm Beach Equine Clinic. Photo courtesy of Miami Police Department.

Anna came across the story of survival through veterinary care in a Jump Media newsletter – and could not believe what she was reading. “When I saw that – at that late stage in her life they had taken the trouble and the expense to take her where she could have the best care available – it confirmed what I already knew, that the Miami Police Department take excellent care of their horses.”

Just another day at the office for Miss Miami.

Miss Miami entered retirement after her surgery and will be put out to pasture in northern Florida with those that have served before her. “She has had a wonderful life,” said Anna. “I am so happy that I found her the right home.”