Teach Kids To Be Safe Around Horses

February 14, 2008

A seven-year-old girl was killed the other day after being drug by a horse. And it was an unbearable tragedy that could have been avoided.

According to the article in the Roxboro Courier Times, Melanie was feeding horses in a pen near her grandparent’s house. She had tied a lead line around her waist. The horse at the other end spooked, and I’m sure you don’t want to imagine the rest.

What was this little girl doing around these horses on her own? I can only assume that she was by herself, as no adult in their right mind would allow a kid to tie a lead rope around them. We used to get yelled at for having a loop in the leadline that could tighten on our hands.

I thought it was bad enough that people keep horses and don’t know how to care for them properly. It’s another thing all together to have horses and not ensure the safety of the children who are around them. The first things you teach kids around horses are to approach horses slowly from the side, don’t run or yell around horses, and never walk behind them. The first thing you teach them when leading a horse is not to wrap a leadline around you in any way.

Unfortunately, this is a horrible accident that never should have happened. It was completely avoidable if an adult had been paying attention. I know that Melanie’s grandparents and parents feel beyond awful about this, and there is no replacing this little girl in their lives. I just hope it can be a lesson to other adults that they need to be so much more careful where kids and horses are concerned.

It’s like having a swimming pool or lake in your backyard. I know parents are always super careful about keeping kids away from water with pool covers or fences or plain old supervision to make sure they don’t accidentally drown. And we need to treat nearby horses with the same degree of healthy respect. Whether they’re yours or a neighbor’s, you need to keep an eye on kids so they don’t do anything dangerous. They may be the nicest horses in the world who would never intentionally hurt a fly (well, maybe a fly), but–like in this case–all it takes is one loud noise to spook them.

Horse are sweet, compassionate, loving animals who usually know to be careful around kids. They are also 20 times the size of a young child and are prone to do something dangerous even if they don’t mean to. Please, if you have horses and young neighbor children, teach them to love horses but to also respect them and to always be careful and always always use their heads.

Posted in Horse News