At 135 years old, it’s the longest-running unit in the Toronto Police Service — a team based out of a stable, not a station, and staffed by two- and four-legged employees alike.

And this year, Toronto’s mounted unit and its 24 horses will cost taxpayers $5.9 million, if the police force’s latest budget request is approved.

As the Toronto police board this week debates the force’s 2022 budget request, some are wondering if Toronto, too, should consider putting its mounted unit out to pasture.

“Anything they can do to reduce the budget is good, including the mounted unit,” said John Sewell, member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition.

“I’m not exactly sure what the rationale is to continue having mounted units in the 21st century,” said Kevin Walby, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg who researches policing and security, adding that horses hearken back “to prior decades or centuries of policing.”.

Toronto police spokesperson Connie Osborne said its mounted unit serves an “integral part in both proactive and reactive policing,” with both officers and horses trained to respond to a variety of critical situations.

“They are used every single day and are crucial in ensuring officer safety as well as public safety,” Osborne said of the horses

Among the reasons cited by Toronto police Chief James Ramer for needing a $25-million budget increase was to staff the force’s “Vision Zero” team — a specialized unit dedicated to traffic law enforcement to increase road safety

Asked how police determined the size of the mounted unit, Osborne said the numbers fluctuate and the size considers shift patterns, vacation and illness in order to “provide an essential response and to remain operationally viable.”

Christian Leuprecht, a Queen’s University and Royal Military College of Canada political science professor who studies policing, said the right question may not be whether the mounted unit is necessary

The Toronto police board is scheduled to discuss the police force’s budget request Tuesday