Posted on 02/21/2004 8:47:18 PM PST by kerosene
Seven-year-old David Sinanan reached out to touch the face of a "friendly looking" horse, and the stallion ripped his left arm off from his shoulder yesterday.
Doctors at the Mt Hope Hospital tried, but failed in their attempt last night to reattach the hand.
Sinanan's life was saved because of the efforts of horse farm worker Deonanan Sankar, 30, who stopped the attack, rescued the boy and kept him alive until paramedics came.
Sinanan had stayed away from classes because he did not want to take part in his school's Carnival celebrations.
The incident happened just before 11 a.m. yesterday at the horse farm at Williams Trace, Ragoonanan Road, Enterprise. The farm is owned by noted race horse owner and trainer Maniram "Boboy" Maharaj.
Sinanan's weeping grandfather, Sinanan Toolsie, said the boy stayed home yesterday because he did not want to take part in the Carnival celebrations at school.
Instead, Sinanan, his two brothers and a friend travelled on their bicycles to the farm a quarter mile from their home.
Sankar was tending the horses when he saw the boy.
He said: "I saw this little fella riding his bike near the fence with the horse Java In Flight running up and down. He put down the bike and jump the drain.
"He reach his arm and before I could bawl out, he put out his hand and touch the horse nose."
Sankar said that from about 100 feet away, he saw the horse "snatch and raise the boy off the ground.
"The boy held on the bar of the fence, but Java In Flight raised him over the railing and high the the air and start to shake him, swinging him like a kite."
Sankar said he screamed to the horse "and Java In Flight drop the boy and run away with the hand in his mouth."
Sankar said he covered the boy in towels and tried to stop the blood.
"He would have died if I didn't help. He said he not moving his hand. I told him don't worry, the doctors would fix him up."
Sinanan was said to be in critical condition at hospital.
Cunupia Police are investigating.
Most horses are dangerous not because they are vicious, but because they are bigger and stronger than we are, and don't have much understanding of how fragile we are. A well-trained horse should, from an early age, demonstrate respect for the personal space of a human and obey him carefully. This means things like watching that he doesn't step on your feet or butt you with his head, moving quietly when near you, and so forth. Behavior like that tends to minimize injuries to the humans.
Some stallions are spoiled so that they become dangerous, because their handlers believe that "he's a stallion, he has to act that way, he can't help it." So they never discipline a large powerful horse and he gets more and more obnoxious, even dangerous.
Some stallions (and a few mares) are simply vicious. They have something wrong with their brains, and should be put down so that their defects don't enter the gene pool. Unfortunately some such horses are kept and bred because they perform so well at racing.
All stallions have the potential to be dangerous. One should never trust even the most angelic stallion (and I've had some really sweet stallions who never hurt a fly and acted like perfect gentlemen even when being bred). Some people are going to argue this with me, but I believe kids should never be near stallions because you can never tell. Stallions have been known to turn on a lifelong owner and savage him or her, even when handled by very experienced horsemen.
You know, if the kid had been in school as he was supposed to be instead of riding around carefree, he would have been okay. He was in the worng place at the wrong time and sometimes that turns out to be very, very bad.
Many stallions bite, it is partly their nature and mostly boredom from living a mostly solitary life. Many stallions are used for riding and show, but some live alone and mostly unhandled until the two minutes he gets to "do his thing" once in a while. It isn't natural for a stallion to live in a small space alone, and without a lot of exercise they can become pretty impossible to be around. That said... a bite is common.... biting anything OFF is so rare I'll bet you'll never see another story like this.
I hope not.
There are dangers and things to be cautious about with horses.... but this story is not representative of that danger, nor are most of the comments. This is a freak accident, and a few posters who had bad ponies have commented on the thread.
Most accidents with horses are indeed accidental.... the fault of a large animal doing someting unexpected.... but not because he was out to get you or bit your arm off.
Hmmm.
While the intelligent and educated side of me wants to agree with that, the ignorant and superstitious side says otherwise.
I once had an association (he wasn't mine, but I had unlimited access to him) with a beautiful stallion who just would not be broken to the saddle.
A friend and the owner and myself worked that horse, using every technique known and after about 8 months, I swear, that horse began retaliating for our actions.
It would stand behind the dutch-door of the stable and wait for you to walk by, at which point it would snort and lunge and all one could see was TEETH and I do mean BIG teeth.
If he missed you with that, he'd immediately turn and deliver a kick to the wall that would literally shake the entire 12-stall barn.
That would set the other horses off, of course, and they were all terrorized by this stallion. It was if he could smell the other horses fear and he'd get even worse.
Even in his more lucid moments, he would slyly wait for someone to get between him and the wall (particularly the blacksmith) and would put his whole 1100 or so pounds against you and you'd become a hoss sandwich. Out of 3 or 4 blacksmiths in the area, only one would even come out and look at him. And all he'd do would be to give a recommendation on whether a shoe was in need of work. From 10 feet away.
That horse knew exactly what he was doing.
Exception perhaps, but none the less dangerous for it.
I came to hate that horse and it was later sold to a older lady who put it to pasture and it was never ridden or touched by a human after that, except for one time that he was re-shoed. That, after a three-day chase and then being restrained by two pick-up trucks and a tractor.
I truly believe that horse had murder in his heart.
He met his end several years later, after he jumped the fence and challenged a Peterbilt log-hauler, about twilight, on the paved road to the paper mill. And even that is believed to be intentional, as that stallion would often be seen racing the length of the fence along the road every time a log hauler would come through. He'd get all excited by them and it was noted by several persons that lived in the area.
The Peterbilt won as it still would operate but the driver definitely lost.
The driver received some grievous injuries from going through the windshield and entanglement with the steering wheel. As I recall, he was hopitalized for a good while. The horse died.
I think that horse got some measure of revenge against the human race, after all.
I said most. One can't make assumptions based on the odd fringe case. If you have other experience with horses I am sure they are not all like that one case. My post was in response to posts that said they were learning a lot about "horses" from these anecdotes.
Horses are a lot like dogs --- a lot depends on how they were socialized but a stallion is never a completely safe animal because of how they're kept pent up and isolated except at breeding time. They'll kill each other --- but a stallion kept with other horses is more mellow.
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