PROVINCETOWN – Police were busy last night with fourteen arrests, including one of an Orleans man accused of punching a police horse. Christopher McEnaney, 18, was arrested and charged with assault on a police horse and resisting arrest after he punched a horse from the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office, one of the mounted patrol horses ridden during town’s raucous July 4 festivities, Provincetown police Sgt. Carrie Lopes said. McEnaney is accused of punching the horse, Fred, in the animal’s flank at about 10:20 p.m. while the mounted patrol officers were in the area of Ryder Street and Commercial Street, Lopes said. No injuries were reported to the horse.

The day they signed the Declaration of Independence John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail and said July 4th “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more” and I think Adams would’ve been proud of Christopher McEnaney.  Nothing says “freedom and independence” quite like getting hammered on Natty Lights and punching a 1,500 lb. animal.  I’m pretty sure I read once that Sam Adams celebrated the 4th by getting drunk on… Sam Adams… and pimp slapping Paul Revere’s horse around.  Still, given the fact this took place in Provincetown, the horse kind of got off easy.  There are probably hundreds of things McEnaney could’ve done to him that were much, much worse.