Horse kick to the head.

[QRTRHRS]

I know of a horse that kicked at a fly and hit someone in the head. The horse would never have done that deliberately. The person was not all that experianced. That's one thing. I have not watched the video but if I had a horse that lashed out in vain, I would seriously consider putting it down. Some "learned" behavior is just not worth the risk. (Do you hear me "do gooders"?)

I practice John Lyons three second rule. An attempted nip, etc. will result in a smack or kick to the chest (usually not the head) within three seconds. Else the horse won't know what they did wrong.

You work around animals, there is a good chance that sooner or later you are going to get hurt in some manner. But then the same could be said for people.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I know of a horse that kicked at a fly and hit someone in the head. The horse would never have done that deliberately. The person was not all that experianced. That's one thing. I have not watched the video but if I had a horse that lashed out in vain, I would seriously consider putting it down. Some "learned" behavior is just not worth the risk. (Do you hear me "do gooders"?)

I practice John Lyons three second rule. An attempted nip, etc. will result in a smack or kick to the chest (usually not the head) within three seconds. Else the horse won't know what they did wrong.

You work around animals, there is a good chance that sooner or later you are going to get hurt in some manner. But then the same could be said for people.

When I was just a kid, maybe 10 years old, I used to listen to my Dad talk about farming with horses and mules; riding his pony to school, and how he bought it at an auction and paying Granddad back, etc. He even told about the army coming out to their farm during WWI, and taking Granddad's matched team of Clydesdale mules. They paid him $800 for the mules...a lot of money in those days.

I made the remark, that it must have been fun in those days, using horses instead of tractors and cars. His answer surprised me; he said "He77 no. Horses are not very smart, and if you don't watch what you are doing, they will get you killed. They will kick you, bite you, step on you; I've even had them run under branches and try to knock you off. Tractors are the best thing that ever happened to farming".

 

[cqaigy2]

When I was just a kid, maybe 10 years old, I used to listen to my Dad talk about farming with horses and mules; riding his pony to school, and how he bought it at an auction and paying Granddad back, etc. He even told about the army coming out to their farm during WWI, and taking Granddad's matched team of Clydesdale mules. They paid him $800 for the mules...a lot of money in those days.

I made the remark, that it must have been fun in those days, using horses instead of tractors and cars. His answer surprised me; he said "He77 no. Horses are not very smart, and if you don't watch what you are doing, they will get you killed. They will kick you, bite you, step on you; I've even had them run under branches and try to knock you off. Tractors are the best thing that ever happened to farming".

Ah yes, the good old days.:laughing:
Seems most of use have had experiences with one animal or another.

 

[jinman]

As much as we'd like to believe our horses are very intelligent, I think that's relative. A smart horse is one that has lightening reflexes and does things automatically like good roping or cutting horses that do their jobs by instinct after hours and hours of practice. The horse in the video would normally jump that wall, but something made it stop. Right away, you know the horse feels uncomfortable or it would have just attempted the jump. After stopping abruptly, it felt something unusual as the rider fell to the ground. Glancing back it saw something out of the corner of its eye on the ground in dark attire. In that instant, the horse's instinct may have made it think that was a wolf, coyote, or even a dog there. The kick was a natural response against a supposed predator in my opinion. Just consider that loafing sheds and horse stalls have to be lined with plywood because horses kick at the slightest provocation. It's innate to their built-in instincts.

As a side story, when my father and brothers were young, they were harassing a mule and banging on a bucket to scare it. My Uncle John was in the wrong place when the mule kicked and it caught him squarely on the forehead. In this photo below, you can see the long scar from the part in his hair to the right eyebrow. He had a fractured skull and concussion, but was lucky to have survived. He was a school teacher most of his life, teaching industrial arts in the San Antonio school district, He lived a long life.

 

[dmccarty]

...
As a side story, when my father and brothers were young, they were harassing a mule and banging on a bucket to scare it. My Uncle John was in the wrong place when the mule kicked and it caught him squarely on the forehead. In this photo below, you can see the long scar from the part in his hair to the right eyebrow. He had a fractured skull and concussion, but was lucky to have survived. ...

View attachment 312544

He sure was lucky to survive that hit....

Later,
Dan

 

[drssg]

As much as we'd like to believe our horses are very intelligent, I think that's relative.

IMO, horse's have very little capacity for rational thought, but they can be incredibly perceptive. I know people who swear they are clairvoyant. I don't believe it, but it can seem like it, if you work with them enough.

This is an interesting link, if you've never heard of Clever Hans (a horse). Clever Hans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans was said to have been taught to add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions, tell time, keep track of the calendar, differentiate musical tones, and read, spell, and understand German. Von Osten would ask Hans, "If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the date of the following Friday? Hans would answer by tapping his hoof. Questions could be asked both orally, and in written form. Von Osten exhibited Hans throughout Germany, and never charged admission. ...

As a result of the large amount of public interest in Clever Hans, the German board of education appointed a commission to investigate von Osten's scientific claims. ...

Pfungst found that the horse could get the correct answer even if von Osten himself did not ask the questions, ruling out the possibility of fraud. However, the horse got the right answer only when the questioner knew what the answer was, and the horse could see the questioner. ...

Pfungst then proceeded to examine the behaviour of the questioner in detail, and showed that as the horse's taps approached the right answer, the questioner's posture and facial expression changed in ways that were consistent with an increase in tension, which was released when the horse made the final, correct tap. This provided a cue that the horse could use to tell it to stop tapping. ...

Both von Osten and Hans were notoriously bad tempered and prone to rage when the horse did not perform well. Pfungst suffered more than one horse bite during his investigation.

 

[tcreeley]

The girl set herself up by jumping bareback with snow on the ground. That horse is a jerk of a horse and knew what it was doing -mad at having to work and "play". A saddle would have helped her to retain control and not fall off. Horses will find the weak spots and take advantage of opening you leave for them. Her fault. She needs to think about whether this horse is worth keeping, is there a problem she can or cannot manage.
My stepfather sold my sister's welsh pony when she fell off while she rode (broke her arm on a rock) bareback. She came back home after a couple of days (people stayed overnight in the hospital in the old days) and Prince was gone. She was heart broken. The real factor here is the girl's fear. If she doesn't have any, she should saddle him up and be ready for a fight. Otherwise she should pass him on to someone with experience. My old Morgan used to try and bite me below the knee when I wasn't looking when he was young. We kept him a stud until he was 5. I trained him to ride and drive by then. We had some real battles, but it was his pride against mine. (We didn't have the facilities to maintain a stud, so we gelded him.) He was a good horse. We had him for 26 years.

 

[hogheadCTD]

drssg hit the nail right on the head.:thumbsup: Horses do not have rational thought like humans.