The Black Lives Matter protest march to the State Fair last Saturday was so well and carefully policed — never mind that the protectors were the ones being protested — that even a drone was employed. I had never seen a drone in action, but there it was, flying above Snelling Avenue near Hamline University.

At the other end of the spectrum was the less fanciful horse. A drone at the highest end of technology, a horse at the lowest, with police cars and police bicyclists in between. And so, off the marchers went, apparently convinced that they could prove that Minnesotans care more about corn dogs than they do about black lives. I am not sure that could ever be proved.

As for the horses, there were, I believe, five mounted horses at the corner of Hewitt and Snelling avenues, on the Hamline campus. It was a very slow and methodical protest march, with the aggrieved still about two blocks south of the Snelling-Hewitt intersection.

The mounted police were an added measure of crowd control, I suppose, although the march was peaceful enough and had not brought about any reason for crowd control, as there were no crowds.

I stood at the Snelling-Hewitt corner, still trying to figure out the corn dog assertion that I had heard earlier at Hamline Park, before the march started, when I heard strong spurts of water.

The campus automatic irrigation system had turned on, directly beneath the horses on the lawn on the south side of Hewitt.

The horses got spooked. The water shot right up right under them.

One horse went down and got back up, with the officer still on the ground. That horse took off east on Hewitt.

Another horse reared up as far as possible with the officer holding on. The other horses backpedaled across Hewitt, tearing up the sod and loosening their bowels out of fear.

Holy mackerel! What was happening?

The downed officer got up. He was OK. He started walking down Hewitt to retrieve his horse, which appeared to be in the hands of a young woman, perhaps a student.

“Soucheray,” one of the mounted officers said. “Come here.”

Well, it was good to be recognized, especially when I knew I hadn’t done anything that could result in a ticket.

“Pet this horse,” he told me.

Years and years ago, one of my sisters had a horse. I saw it a couple of times, but I never got on it or touched it. That was the extent of my horse knowledge.

I started patting the horse. The horse might or might not have been rattled. I couldn’t tell. By now, the marchers were passing by on Snelling, but nobody had seen the 30 seconds or so of chaos.

“Sometimes the horses calm down when a stranger pets them,” the officer told me.

I got into it then. I started talking to the big guy, telling him that everything would be OK, that he was a good boy. I was a horse whisperer! At the very least I apparently did not make matters worse, because the officer said, “Thanks — it’s OK.”

The officer who had been down was back on his horse and I asked him whether he was OK. The other coppers said only his ego was bruised. He said, “I’ll be taking Advil tonight.”

They had everything under control inside three minutes. I imagine you don’t get horse duty unless you know very well what you are doing.

I saw the guys on their horses later that day when the marchers were making the slow trek back to Hamline Park and chanting, however briefly, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” They said that on the way back from the Fair.

Really? The police deliver you to the Fair with kid gloves and then deliver you with the same kid gloves back to Hamline Park and this is what you come up with?

Pathetic.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474.