Horse Safety needs to get serious!

Horse safety needs to be taught seriously. There are a lot of parent sround here who do not teach about safety around these animals. the reason Im bringing this up, is because recently a 13-year old girl got killed. Not because of an accident either. She was a barrel racer. She has only been riding around a year or so. The other day, she went to get her horse out of the pasture, as usual, every evening. Se caught him, the TIED THE ROPE AROUND HER WAIST! In a knot! Well, halfway to the house, she tripped on a rock pile. The horse spooked and drug her for 30 minutes! They could not catch him. When they did, they were way too late. I feel really bad, but she should have been taught better, or she should have known better.

Im sick of seeing people at races and rodeos whos kids are running loose in the parking lot! Pinto almost kicked a little boy last year becaus he ran right behind him and hit him(not on purpose). This is a serious issue around here. Kids need to be taught properly.

Anyway, my 2 cents....

Good lord that is horrible, and so sad. I wouldn't blame anyone though honestly the girl was 13 and had been barrel racing for a year she should have known better.

I know at 13 heck at 8 when I first started taking lessons it was common sense to not tie a large animal to yourself. I see adults who will wrap a lead rope around thier hand or wrist as they are leading a horse and I wince everytime. Common sense is something your born with, it can't be learned

Oh My gosh! That's terrible!

My kids all know the ins and outs, but occassionally they still need a
firm reminder when they get to comfortable around the horses. I always
tell them, just because they are okay 99% of the time, it only takes
one dumb thing to set them off!

I am so sorry to hear about that little girl and my gosh her poor family must be devasted! So sad!

Man, I really hate to hear this.

Tell ya something my sister was doing that just blew me away. Remember I have her gelding over here. And heck, we both grew up on horses, not like she doesn't know what she's doing.

Well, apparently, with this dressage bunch, they like to give a lot of treats, which I think is a big no/no. So every time her and the kids would come over, she has this big thing of treats that she would feed the horse, and he'd danged near take your hand off to get it, and if you didn't have one, he'd get real pushy, all 16'2 of him. Well, she has a young son, who's 3, well, they've got little hands... so he wants to give Cinco a treat... I saw it, and saw the horse coming at him, course sister's off doing something else not paying a bit of attention, and I'm like ... well, you know, the scream. I turned around and ripped a new one on my sister. Told her there would be no more treats, period, whatsoever, nada over here, I wasn't having somebody getting their danged hand bit off. And if she didn't like it, she could find some place else for him to be. Got a real stupid look, but dang... I swear, as smart as someone people, sometimes ya gotta wonder, they must have not been in the common sense line when they were told to line up... jeesh!

We went to a horse sale not to long ago, 3 kids were walking around 5 to 8ish. There was a mini mule/donkey there, just as the children got with in range he fired on them. Both Barrels, twice. Got all three. 2 bleeding and one on the ground. He was able to get off 2 shots because he had them stumbling all over themselves. Folks laughed until they saw that the children were hurt. Hello, Mom and Dad! When my children were in 4-H, they Preached Saftey! The members got tired of hearing it. I wonder how often it saved them and they didn't even know it.

Good advise Cindy to your kids and so true. You just never know what an animal with do next.. It seems this girl may have been riding and barrel racing but did not use good sense when she tied the horse to her self.. Too bad this happend and really sad..

Very simple rule of thumb is to expect the unexpected and never get complacent around animals. Even the small ones..