[blogbat]

"Heck, I've got several horses that can untie their own lead rope if you don't watch them like a hawk. A horse needs to be tied with a quick release knot so that he can be easily freed if something spooks him and he pulls back and panics, so you can't tie a really tight knot to begin with. I think this is just a tragic accident and and the witch hunt needs to stop."

But aren't you contradicting yourself?

[HairOfTheDog]

No, she's not contradicting herself. The quick release knot that many of us use tying our horses frees them from what they are tied to, not from the lead rope.

Really though, that isn't what happened here. These guys were re-enacting a rodeo scene where cowboys are supposed to race to catch and saddle and get on these horses, and one hit the lead rope during that chase.

It's a lousy sport that does no good for the mind of the animals trained that way, but the level of risk of a horse running with the lead rope attached is overstated and anyone who's had one get away like this when they ~weren't~ injured knows that.

I think it's the level of your rhetoric that seems out of balance with the actual events that took place... Events that are/were done in real life and would be relevant to re-enact for a film of this kind. I think in the hindsight of what happened, it's more than sensible that future re-enactments will be done with trained rather than wild horses, though that might only lower the amount of panic in the running horse, not the actual risk that killed this one.

[FrogInABlender]

I don't think so. I was just saying that he might have untied himself, but as I read further down the thread I see that he didn't. Comment withdrawn.