Posted on 03/22/2007 8:59:06 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
VENICE, Fla. -- A 13-year-old Venice girl died after being thrown from a horse.
Mary Angela Jaquith was practicing for a jumping competition at her family farm on Saturday when another member of her riding club had a problem with a horse. Jaquith saddled up to see if she could help.
But the horse reared back, threw Jaquith to the ground and rolled over her.
Jaquith's mother, Debra is a former nurse. She rushed to the girl's side and found her unconscious and bleeding heavily.
Jaquith was airlifted to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.
Despite her riding helmet, Jaquith suffered a fracture to the base of her skull. She died on Sunday.
A Mass of Christian burial is scheduled for today in Venice.
I haven't watched bull riding since I saw a young man get his brains stomped out at a rodeo we were at. I never liked watching bull riding before that, now I really don't like it...
And with that, I'm off to saddle my horse and go ride:) The lady that was going has canceled so I don't have to wait on anyone.
Becky
Well... one of them is an art form, and one of them is just goofy showboating :~)
Good for you for explaining. Remember the saying? "There's something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." The ones that are uneducated about horses and spout off, stay uneducated and should stay away from horses.
Had a very similar accident at @ age 13.
Horse did not see back rail of an oxer (wide jump).
He caught rear legs in a downward motion on the rail, thus facing resistance. The rails sit in cups, so they can easily roll out, but downward pressure does not release them.
I was still in the saddle when we hit the ground. The horse did not have his legs under him. After hitting the ground the horse rolled over his back to get up. I was pressed into the ground.
My mouth was full of dirt, and my wind was completely pressed out of me. I managed to get a breath after what seemed an eternity (20 seconds?). The ambulance had already been called.
3 minutes later they cancelled the call - unbelievably, I was fine.
At the stable where I learned to ride and hunt, there was a huge bay stallion named Junior who was the meanest SOB ever born. All the students were taught to give Junior a wide berth; he'd even lean out of his stall to bite if you got close enough.
Only two people could ride him - the stable boss Dan, and a guy named Patrick.
One day, not long before I got there, Patrick was taking Junior around the ring, over some basic jumps. They approached the Wall, which was a bricky-looking jump about three feet high.
Junior decided at the last minute that he didn't want to clear the Wall, so he stopped short and let Patrick go over without him. After Patrick landed, then Junior decided to jump after all.
He landed on Patrick, and after that there was only one man who could ride him. Ugh.
That said, I cannot count the number of times I've gone one way and my horse has gone another. (The stage-combat training I've had has taught me to fall without hurting myself, and that's helped.)
The vast majority of those are due to me signaling to the horse that I'm gonna do something, and then not doing it or doing it wrong. Only a couple times was it the horse's idea to ditch me.
That's terrible. There should have been no Jr. anymore.
You two are doing a certain amount of ignorant spouting off yourself. Becky rides, has more hours in the saddle every week than many people I know. Doesn't mean she can't express her own thoughts and fears about people who, in her view, take risks she wouldn't take.
Ease up.
IIRC, the only reason Junior continued to leave a carbon footprint was that Patrick's family requested he not be put down. (Mind you, this was 25 years ago, so the details are a bit hazy.)
It's the kids riding outside the arena that I worry about with all the distractions: other horses, trucks, kids running, carts, and who knows what else.
My heart's in my throat during lots of sport hoping nothing terrible happens. There's beautiful animal and a vulnerable rider and don't want to see either of them hurt. It's not like Nascar where I think people are actually hoping there will be a crash. I enjoy it a lot more if I can watch it twice, the second time because I know the horse jumped clear, or that the race was without incident.
The thing is, that as sad as this is, this young girl could have died of illness, been in a car crash, drowned etc. Because it was a rarer accident, horses and jumping are getting more attention. Horses are good for kids most of the time IMO. That doesn't mean an adult shouldn't be around to supervise safety though.
Well, in fairness to Jr... it doesn't sound like an act of malice, or even intentional... just an accident.
Hey now. Nascar is a cool sport too :')
Didn't say it wasn't... But people do hope there'll be a crash. :~)
I was going by the previous description of his disposition. Only 2 men could ride him. He bit whoever got close. He refused a jump, threw his rider then jumped on top of him. It didn't sould like he was having a bad day but had a bad attitude. I would have put him down before he hurt or killed someone else. If the family chose not to, I respect their decision though.
I've been jumping all my life, since I was an itty-bitty, and I'm still at it in my 50s. I don't jump as high as I used to, actually the height of the jump doesn't matter so much as the approach and the turns. Anything over about 2'6" or 3' is not really educating you or the horse.
The times I've been hurt, it's because I was ignoring one or another of the "rules" - I overfaced myself or my horse, or rode a horse I wasn't really familiar with a little too adventurously, or did "just one more round" when the horse and I were tired.
The older I get the more careful I am about the rules. I look for a way around some stuff in the hunting field that I would have tally-hoed over 20 years ago. But so long as you're reasonably sensible, it's safe.
The very worst riding injury I've ever seen the rider was breaking just about every rule in the book. On the other hand, an agriculture secretary in the Reagan administration was killed practicing for a team roping event when his horse fell on him. So far as I know he wasn't doing anything wrong, it just happened.
Worst thing in the world is for people to keep (and God forbid breed) a horse or a dog or a cat with temperamental problems. I don't care how pretty it is, if it's mean, cut it -- if it's still mean, send it off to Alpo.
If that horse ever hurt somebody else again, they'd have it on their consciences, but the owner would be set up for a big punitive damages verdict.
That's the "One Bite Rule".
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