Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

EXACTLY. Like I keep saying, YOU know what your horse might do and YOU know how much space s/he needs. Other people don't.

If the woman hadn't said anything then it would be assumed that she didn't know her horse might show aggression and it would have probably been deemed an accident. However, she KNEW her horse might very well do something dangerous in the given situation yet she barely did anything to prevent it. All she did was prove that she was aware of the mare's biting tendency.

On Jan 28, 2008 3:45 PM, sherman <sherman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I agree that saying "this horse bites" is not a strong enough statement for a horse that will lunge at and bite a person. The owner had the responsibility to give another warning if she thought the person was too close and to hold her horse in such a way that it couldn't attack, just as the person with a stallion has that responsibility to control their horse even if someone is too close. Lots of people have never been around a stallion or a horse that will lunge at and bite, so don't know how much space they need. The dangerous animal needs to be moved away or be under better control in a social or crowd situation.

I had a horse that would try to bite only our vet (he'd done a small surgery on the mare and it took a couple years for her to forgive him) so it was my responsibility to make sure the vet didn't get bit, not the vet's, even though I told him she would try to bite him. 

The horse should be treated the same as an unruly stallion, IMO.

Kathy

-- 
Genevieve