Oh yeah, Jr. I guess we both read the post differently. I read that Jr was a problem, before the accident. I would not have any horse on my property that killed anyone, accident or deliberate. Here is why:
1. Liability. In Texas, stables are protected from liability (within reason) It doesn't mean they can't be sued though. I live in an area where juries tend to be sympathetic and huge monies are given.
2. Whether accident or not, horses tend to repeat stuff they get away with. Would the horse try it again?
3. Kids will be kids. Dares, curiosity. They are going to check him out. Even though they are where they aren't supposed to be, they can still get hurt. That's why I took my pool down, when the grand-babies moved in.
4. Every time I looked at this horse, I would remember and wonder about the above. I'm not saying either of us is right or wrong. Just explaining where I am coming from.
I understand people can, with a few loaded words, convince naive juries of things. I'm just surprised that two horsewomen are so easily swayed to lead the charge. Every horse at a stable could hurt a kid. Without any malice at all.
I read the post and agree it sounds like it was a rather rank stallion. But a couple things jumped out at me. First... "Stallion" in an of itself should serve as a warning and an assumed risk for any reasonably knowledgeable horse person. It seems these people did one thing right and that was that they were pretty good about warning and teaching students not to mess with that horse. It's not like they were using the horse for kiddie lessons. The kids knew to keep their fingers away. They didn't leave the stallion running loose among the children, they had him in a stall. No kid was hurt here, a trainer was.
I think they'd probably warn the next trainer too. "Hey we need a trainer for our rather rank stallion... see, he killed our last trainer in a jumping incident last week." The guy the horse hurt was not a kid, it was one of the trainers who presumably knew what he was getting into. So would the next trainer hired. If owning a rank horse and hiring a trainer to fix it doesn't release you of liability at least toward that trainer, then I hope you're prepared to give your home and all your money to whoever you send SL to to be fixed, if he gets hurt. Not trying to be harsh, just trying to put things in perspective on who you should be trying to protect.
The horse might have been a rank, difficult horse, but the accident as described here is something that might well have happened with the sweetest old school horse in the barn.