In a thread discussing the man killed in a woodchipper, complacency was identified as possibly his true killer. Knowing better, but having years of experience on the job, he pushed a branch into the chipper using his foot. His leg became trapped, and the rest is gruesome history.
I was reminded of this yesterday when I witnessed one of the scariest sights I’ve seen around horses. I was riding my horse Ana in the main ring while my miniature horse enjoyed turnout in the warm-up ring. Another boarder was riding her mare in the third arena on the property, so all the rings were occupied. A teenaged girl showed up with her two horses in tow, looking for a turnout. I told her I was almost done (like 5-10min more, max) and she could use the big arena for her horses. She asked if I wanted her to put my mini back in her stall for me; she would just leave her horses to graze outside the gate because “they’ll stay.” This made me uncomfortable (I don’t mind her handling the mini, I just didn’t want her leaving her own horses unattended), and I said I’d rather keep the arena because I was going to put my riding horse in it after the ride. She was cool with that.
This is where I say “Complacency kills.” We all do it, no matter what our line of work or our hobbies . We know the safety rules, but we don’t all follow all of them all of the time. Sometimes, certain rules get pish-poshed aside. For her, it’s the rule about always making sure your horse is tied or otherwise secure (confined to an arena, turnout, etc.). Lately, she’s just dropped lead ropes and let her horses graze loose on the equestrian park property, and up to tonight, nothing has happened.
Up to tonight. Not a minute after we chatted, one of her horses bolted off in a bucking, galloping celebration of freedom. She leapt onto her other horse with impressive agility and galloped to the loose horse. She jumped down, leaves the other horse loose, and proceeded to discipline the naughty gelding. You see where this is going, right? Seeing how amped her horses are, I called out, “I’m on my way out,” and started to walk Ana toward the gate. Before we get there, the OTHER horse bolted, and this time the second horse took off with their herdmate. The two bolted around the back of the equestrian property, onto the adjoining baseball field property, with the teenager sprinting behind. Then I hear, “Oh NOOOOO!” The horses had sprinted through the baseball parking lot (between several parked cars, with lots of little kids mingling between them) and turned left–toward a major 4-lane highway. I decided to trot Ana toward them as bait–maybe they’d come to another horse to sniff and greet. Instead, I saw two wild-eyed horses coming at us head on. Screw this! I hopped off Ana in a hurry, and the two crazed horses bolted past us. Ana danced in place and shook a little as they passed–and pooped! They scared the crap out of her!–but otherwise she was a good girl. The two horses finally ran onto the property where my horses are boarded and took off behind some stalls, where they finally stopped and started eating spilled hay. There, the teenager’s boyfriend finally grabs hold of them.
A few minutes later, the bewildered teen shows up at the property asking where they are. Pointing to the two horses behind the stalls, safely in her boyfriend’s hands, she collapses sobbing and, eventually, hyperventilating. It was SERIOUSLY scary stuff that she’d just witnessed, so I don’t blame her at all for reacting that way. Thankfully one of the coboarders is a retired ER nurse, so she was able to help the girl out.
Mercifully, no one or horse was hurt…they didn’t run over a kid in the baseball parking lot, didn’t run into any of the parked cars, didn’t run out onto the major road and kill themselves (and/or someone else) by getting struck by a car…oh, man. This could have been SO bad.
Be safe, everyone.
