My comment left on Youtube was that the parents should be beaten.
I know nothing about horses, but if I were filming that and paying attention to my little camcorder, I’d have totally missed any warning signs from the horse until the “attack.” On the other hand, I’m generally nervous about animals. Even my cat attacks me when I’m asleep.
No, the horse can’t see you on its back but it can sure as heck feel you there. Horses are not insensitive clods, they are equipped with fully functional senses. In addition to sight they can also smell you and hear you when you’re in their presence. They don’t have to see you to know where you are in relation to their bodies when you’re near them. In fact, a horse that trusts you might well not look at you at all, because herd animals don’t watch the ones they trust, they watch for the predators that might be coming over the horizon.
Quoted for truth. If you must go around behind a horse, either move way, way out – and a kick can lash back what, a good six to eight feet? Anyway, I’d give it more room than that – or if you must be within kicking range, go right up tight to the horse with, as RC says, your hand on the horse’s rump all the while so it knows you’re there. If the horse does kick while you’re passing in tight to it, you’ll get the impact when it’s just beginning to fire rather than out where the force is at its fiercest.
It never hurts to keep in mind that the one blind spot a horse has is in a narrow cone directly behind it, so anything appearing suddenly from that spot has potential to spook even the calmest of horses. Let the horse know you’re going into that area, let it know (hand on rump and/or voice) you’re passing through and emerging on the other side.
And while I’m on the subject, bicyclists, rollerskaters, please, if you’re coming up behind a horse (and rider, or hitched to a cart, or just being led), please, please call out a warning when you’re still a few dozen yards back to give the human in charge of the horse time to take whatever action s/he deems needed to cope with your sudden appearance from behind the horse. Please. I beg you. Please.
The real warning sign was the kid tormenting the horse. Horse, dog, when a kids does stuff like this, the odds of something bad happening are pretty high.
Wow. Sure hope the parents and the kid learned from that.
I don’t know a lot about horse body language, but I just figured a very young unsupervised kid + a field of horses = bad. Plus, the fact that she kept following it around when it kept trying to walk off seemed like a bad thing. I don’t know about horses, but animals (including people) who keep ignoring you when you’re being annoying probably aren’t in the mood to deal with you.
The girl wasn’t on her back, she was leading her by the reins.
Anyway, most of the time you are riding a horse, it can see you perfectly well. Every time it bends it’s neck slightly either direction, you are in its field of view.
I showed the vid to my mother, who runs a boarding stable and a horsemanship clinic for kids, in short, Mom, who is an equine professional, stated quite simply “this was intentional, no doubt, the horse was reacting to “Pwecious” as if she was a predator, trying to escape, and when “Pwecious” wouldn’t leave the horse alone, it deliberately body-checked her away, the horse knew what it was doing”
In fact, no less than ten seconds in, Mom was remarking on how STUPID the kid was being, and wondering where the brat’s parents were, and more importantly WHY they were allowing a four year old to be unsupervised in an active horse pasture, she was absolutely outraged at the irresponsible behavior of all the humans in the video, “Pwecious” AND her parents
Mom has had over 40+ years dealing with horses on a daily basis, she is a highly skilled equine professional and a competing professional horse rider, she knows her equines
It’s like we’re not even watching the same video here.
The horse didn’t attack the girl.
It fell down. At 1:52, the still horse moves suddenly. Precious tries to sidestep this. At 1:53, you can see the front left (our right) foot slip sideways. The rest is the horse recovering its balance.
This says nothing about the intelligence of the parent or the girl, but the horse certainly didn’t “attack”.
No way. The horse pins its ears and “snakes” its neck in warning just before going in for the check. Also, very carefully does not step on the child. Horses, do not just “fall down” for no reason, barring neurological problems, in which case the horse would have just gone down and squashed the girl flat. (I promise you, if you have never seen a horse collapse, you never want to - it is scary). This horse is never unbalanced and stumbling. It’s absolutely a calculated act.
I thought Precious was the horse, not the girl?
It also makes you wonder who thought this was a good idea to post on youtube…
It was not meant to be an “attack”, but since horses lack arms and hands to push or shove “Pwecious” away, it was doing the next best thing, giving her a full-body shove away
“Pwecious” missed all the more subtle clues the horse was sending, i.e. it’s walking away, trotting away, putting it’s ears back, tossing it’s head towards her, turning it’s rump towards her**, and finally, resorting to the horse-equivalent of shoving the little irritant away, as the oblivious little “Pwecious” had ignored all the other “leave me alone” signs
**you NEVER approach a horse from the rear unless you give it some form of audible or tactile signal that you are behind it, and more importantly, you wait to see if the horse has acknowledged your presence, if you’re talking to it while approaching from aft, make sure at least one of it’s ears turns back towards you, and the horse turns it’s head to look in your direction as you speak to it, simply sneaking up silently behind it is a good way to get kicked down
“Precious” may indeed be the horse’s name, but I’m using “Pwecious” (deliberate quotes and misspelling) as a derogatory name for the self-centered little brat…
“Pwecious”=stupid brat
“Precious”=unfortunately named horse (and The One Ring, but that’s beside the point here 
)
It’s wrong to blame the little girl. She’s 4. Of course she’s self-centered. That’s part of being 4. It would be different were she 14. She’s not going to read horse body language. Parents, on the other hand, should know better and should be reported to child protection (assuming it was a parent present and filming). Whatever adult was present needs not to ever be in charge of children.
I agree, D_ODds. The girl didn’t know any better. It’s the job of the adults to make sure she knows how to behave.
Exactly. I’m not even all that experienced with farm animals, but it was completely evident to me that the horse in the video was pissed off and anyone who’s ever dealt with an animal as large as that should know that they can just walk all over an adult - let alone a 4 year old - if they feel like it.
And horses are dicks - they may be more intelligent but I personally prefer cows a lot more; they’re not nearly as easily spooked and they tend to walk away instead of kick.
I agree with D_ODds. I don’t blame the girl. She’s 4. Complaining that a 4 year old was “stupid” for missing the signs that an animal was annoyed by their antics is absurd.
Whatever adult was supposed to be minding the kid is entirely to blame.
About a year and a half ago, my nephew, about age 6, went into his grandfather’s corrals unattended to pet the horses. He got a full-force kick to the stomach that completely detached his spleen (the doctor later said he just lifted it right out, no cutting) and nearly died from internal bleeding. He’ll be on weekly antibiotics for the rest of his life.
So, yeah, horses knocking kids around, yuk yuk.
Edited to add: and yes, grandfather is the one to blame, not the horse. He was supposed to be minding the kid, and failed in dramatic fashion.
Well, dang. I don’t think we have to blame Grandpa, do we? Sometimes accidents just happen.
To my totally untrained eye, it looks like a deliberate shoulder check. Sure did shut her annoying lil’ ass up, didn’t it?
I wonder if the parents didn’t see the kid do this kind of stuff with the horses all the time, but never had the horses respond before…maybe that would explain why they didn’t take action this time? I don’t know. Just seems weird that they would be so stupid as to risk their little girl’s life.
I don’t think anyone here is finding it in the least amusing; we’re all horrified at the negligent endangerment of this little girl. Even the comments at Youtube, that morass of idiotic commentary, are mostly in that vein. I’m very sorry to hear what happened to your nephew. Poor kid! What happened to him is what I was dreading would happen to this little girl.