Idiots and horses, never a good combo.

[Pixelated]

I assume the parents never heard of Chris Reeve? I'm not sure the mother would appreciate her dinkums become that special...

Wouldn't matter if they had. Didn't they get to watch a video of a fatal horse-riding accident? And Mommy Dearest still didn't "get it."

Last time I was on a horse was ... back when those nice guys used to walk through neighbourhoods with a pony asking parents if they wanted their kids to have their photo taken on "horseback."

[katzklaw]

my worst horse-related injuries came from my dad's horse, not mine. lol. one time he spooked while i was picking his hoof... he stomped the hoof down on my foot, turned around (on my foot) and ran out of his stall. i was wearing canvastops, and the barn wasn't finished being built yet, so the "stall" just had a bare dirt floor... no shavings or rubber matting or anything. another time i was riding him at a neighbor's house (they actually had a real riding ring)... he decided he wanted to speed up (ex racehorse, so speeding up was his thing)... i lost my balance, and for the whole length of the ring i alternated between tilting backwards and pulling him, which slowed him... and then because he slowed i tilted back forward so he sped back up again.. when i hit the turn i was still off balance and off i went, at a full canter from a 16 hand horse (and i'm short)... and her ring was bordered by 2x4s set narrow side up... landed right on it on my ribs.

not sure if i broke anything in either occurrence... i never went to the doctor... but i do know my foot turned a lovely shade of purple and swelled up for a while after the one... and it hurt to breathe for days after the other.

gotta have respect around an animal that much bigger than you are... even if it IS an herbivore

[morgana]

It may be an herbivore, but damn it hurts when it bites.

Those kids AND their parents are idiots.

[paxillated]

Oh, yeah: bitten hand, broken coccyx, mashed knee, concussion x3, broken ribs.

I did learn that, if a horse steps full on your foot, it likely did it on purpose. Stand still, and see if they don't turn their heads and look at you! And to watch their ears, because if they spook, they lock those ears on the spooky thing. Don't think, "It's only a bucket!" They spook at new/unusual things because they are prey animals. Spooky thing may indicate a predator in the vicinity... I don't even want to think about the effect of a flying plastic grocery bag!

Underneath the professional level horses (dressage, hunter/jumper, etc), the most expensive horse out there is the "school horse." I was offered $1500 for one in 1972; that's almost $9000 today. I feel sorry for the folks I see on Craigslist looking for a bomb-proof horse for their kid...

[katzklaw]

i got my horse from an auction for $900 about... uhmmmm (oh God... was it that long ago???) 27 years ago? give or take.

she wasn't quite 100% bomb proof, but she was the perfect first horse for someone who had at least ridden a little before-hand. very calm, kind, smart... my dad with drassage training could get on her and collect her and ride her around...we trail rode, and i learned a lot, even some very low jumping... and yet if my friends came over i could say "this is how you steer, this is how you stop, have fun" and give her a slap on the rump and watch her amble around the field.

she was so cheap i think because she had navicular syndrome, and when we got her we didn't know it... buyer beware at an auction i suppose.. and she cribbed. she was great, tho. ^_^

[Cecily]

You have to respect something that 1) much bigger than you, 2) has teeth, 3) can kick your skull in without any straining. I can only hope those kids don't get killed or maimed by a horse. Even the chronically stupid don't deserve to die and certainly not the poor animal involved in their nonsense. I've read somewhere that even a dog can kill a prey up to five times their body weight.

When my mom was young, they had a Clydesdale. BIG, BIG horse. Mom could get that horse to do everything and anything for her, much like it was her dog. Anyone else was out of luck. When she got married and left the farm, Grandfather sold the horse because he could do nothing with it. The new owner had him put down because the poor thing became aggressive. Mom mourned her horse until her death at 97 years old.

[flyonthewall]

Reminds me of this story:


https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/c..._listen_to_us/

[bankworking]

Idiots.

Back when I rode horses, my teacher had a horse that she stabled for a family who allowed her to use the horse as one of the lesson horses. The family spoiled that horse rotten. Gave him treats like crazy until he was overweight. When their kids rode him, he was allowed to do whatever and picked up a lot of bad habits that made it difficult to actually use him for lessons, permission or not. He was gentle and mostly just lazy, but picked up some dangerous tricks to try to get someone off his back. Liked to pretend he was scared when he wasn't, just to do a quick bolt. Another habit he picked up was deciding, mid-canter, to freeze in place and "scratch" his nose against his knee. Sent the family kids tumbling every time, and they are lucky as can be that none of them ever got hurt.

I was chosen to ride him a lot because I was light in weight at the time, (with him being overweight and a touch small, teacher was worried about full grown adults on his back), but knew enough not to let him get away with his tricks.

She couldn't keep the family away from their own horse though, so not sure having one person who could ride him helped with the habits.

[Soulstealer]

gotta have respect around an animal that much bigger than you are... even if it IS an herbivore

The biggest and nastiest ones are.

https://photos.travelblog.org/Photos...ing-lion-0.jpg

[eltf177]

Hippos have a nasty temper, I remember reading once they're responsible for more deaths than many carnivores!

[dalesys]

"Domestic" bull cattle are very dangerous. The tiny Jersey's especially so.

[protege]

"Domestic" bull cattle are very dangerous.

That they are. They can easily ruin your entire day. For the most part, at least when my family had the farm, the bulls were castrated to deter the aggressive behavior. What few intact bulls there were, were usually in their own pens, or kept on the renter's other farm. (We'd rent out the pastures, since it was mostly hills and unsuitable for plants.) When the renter was breeding cattle, the bull would be brought down, he'd do his business, and then go back up the hill. Otherwise, the bulls pretty much left people alone--they'd actually run away from us. Even so, we'd keep our distance. I don't know about you, but I'm not about to have the "hamburger" strike back

[Lace Neil Singer]

Another habit he picked up was deciding, mid-canter, to freeze in place and "scratch" his nose against his knee.

The quarter horse that I used to ride, Bill, sometimes did stuff like that, but for the lulz, not out of malice. He'd swerve off to the left or right after jumping; I learned to just swerve with him. XD He also paced when trotting which was good when we were riding bareback, cuz no bumps.

[AkaiKitsune]

The quarter horse that I used to ride, Bill, sometimes did stuff like that, but for the lulz, not out of malice. He'd swerve off to the left or right after jumping; I learned to just swerve with him. XD He also paced when trotting which was good when we were riding bareback, cuz no bumps.

I rode a gaited horse for the first time last summer. It was the weirdest feeling ever to have that trot and no bounce. She could pave and rack naturally. Couldn't get her to do a normal trot though. And she had severe separation anxiety. She eventually had to be put down for that because she had gotton to the point where she was a danger to everyone if her stablemate was out of sight. Rearing bucking slamming herself against the fence trying to roll doing this weird thing where she would stretch out her front legs and bow then jump up and slam her rider with her neck. It got to the point where she would attack people who entered her paddock to fetch the other horse. I don't know what her problem was because her owner was never abusive or neglectful. And all her other horses were perfectly well adjusted. She hadn't been bought from somewhere else so I couldn't trace the anxiety to anything. Somethin had to be causing it though. It wasn't being ridden either as she had no problems with standing calmly or working under saddle so long as her stablemate was doing the same thing. The closest I could think of was herd mentality. A matter of if you do this and nothing happens then I can do it too. Except they could be working two entirely different disinclined and she'd be just fine.

I also rode this one horse when I was first starting. Ex TB race horse too slow to warrant keeping, runaway. Killed 4 of his riders and maimed a 5th. Freakishly intelligent. Terrified of stepping over a ground pole.
In fact he would much rather go over the six ft oxer from less then 6 strides away, then the nice little ground poles to the nice little warm up X.
But I think his biggest problem with his previous riders was that he was just too smart. In shows you could see his head following the other horses on their course and he would memorize the damn thing. If the rider let their horse get away with anything you could bet he'd try it too. So long as you rode to the best of your ability he was mostly fine. But the moment you slacked off he took full advantage. But he also knew when you were being lazy as opposed to something going wrong. I had my helmet tip forward and blind me. I guess he realized from my sudden body language change that something was wrong and he finished the last three jumps to the course. Even doing a flying change without prompting (which he doesn't normally do even with prompting). Mind, this is the same 17hh horse who thought it hilarious to grab the bridle of the hook when I was tacking up and then lift his head as high as it could go so I couldn't reach. Even with two of us pulling his head down he just stood there silently mocking us. He also broke more than a few rows before I finally got steel toes for tacking up. Not to mention his pinning me to the crosstie walls with his shoulder.