Horses adept at catching smugglers, illegals on border

USA Today:
Clyde knows a thing or two about men hiding.
 If there's someone squatting in the bush near the Rio Grande, the 5-year-old gelding will prick up his ears, give a snort and stop in his tracks, despite gentle rib kicks from his rider.
If people make a run for the river, he'll crash through brush and branches after them. Or he could be quiet as a breath and walk right up to a circle of unsuspecting smugglers.
Clyde, a lean, copper-colored mustang, is one of the latest weapons in the struggle to tighten the U.S. border with Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol has used horses since its inception in 1924, but new funds from headquarters and a federal program that captures, breaks and donates wild mustangs is bringing more mounted patrols than ever to the border.
"He's doing great," says Border Patrol agent Chris Garza, Clyde's rider. "They do things ATVs and trucks just can't."
The horses come at a crucial time for the southeastern area of the border, the Rio Grande Valley Sector, a 316-mile stretch from Brownsville to Falcon Heights. For the fiscal year ending in September, agents here seized more than 930,000 pounds of marijuana, a new sector record, and arrested more than 53,000 people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally -- more than the other two border sectors in Texas.
The high numbers are credited to increased enforcement, as well as crackdowns on drug cartels by Mexican authorities on the other side of the Rio Grande, says Supervisory Agent Daniel Milian, a spokesman. As the government raids the stashes of nearby syndicates such as the Zetas and Gulf Cartel, more drugs come north to the USA.
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There is more.

Inmates are used to break and train the horses used on the patrols.  Most of them are caught running wild on federal owned properties.  It seems like a cost effective way of dealing with the problem.  Instead of boots on the ground it is hooves on the ground and boots in the stirrups.

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