It's graduation day for more than a dozen mounted officers in the Rockland County sheriff’s department.

Twenty-two mounted officers have gone through 80 hours of training at the department’s mounted unit base in Pomona to become one with their horses.

The training includes precision riding, auto extrication and crowd control.  The mounted unit uses several different types of horses including a couple of Clydesdales. 

Officials say it takes a little time for the horses and officers to become a team. “The horses obviously sense the comfort the officer has riding them, and the more they are together the more they become a team and work together," says Rockland County Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Robert Van Cura. "They feed off each other, so when they're in the street if someone is punching the horse or pulling at the horse, the officer and the horse are together and they can move together and repel that person and kind of restore order."

Officers from New York State Police, Connecticut, and New Jersey took part in today's graduation.