Passing judgement is not always a negative thing. I will state that IMHO, what she did was wrong, loss of temper or not. But, she is young and perhaps has never been taught properly herself. My hope is that she learns the right lessons from this experience and modifies HER behavior in the future.
Unfortunately, if she had the trust of this horse before, she has damaged it severely, or even completely lost it. Horses never forget what they have learned, for good or for bad. And, she just confirmed for this horse that whatever it was she was trying to do, was a bad thing and to be avoided in the future because he got punished for it.
That's the unintended consequence of our misguided losses of temper. Stand still for clippers? No way! Every time you bring those things around me you beat the crap out of me!
Still around Becky? :~D
Hey, I can pass judgment with the best of the boys. ;)
What this girl did was wrong, we all agree on that. Hopefully, this was an isolated incident, totally out of character. I just don't think jail time is the answer here, without doing some digging. If she has made a habit out of beating her horses until they need stitches, jailtime might be the way to go. If it was out of character, perhaps all the backlash she is receiving is punishment enough.