I didn’t exactly grow up around horses, but I knew early on not to spook them or stand behind them.
He’s lucky his face got a glancing blow. A horse will cave your face in, give you a TBI, or kill you. And I don’t think that guy has too many brain cells to spare.
My brother’s high school buddy took a single kick to the chest and had to be rushed to the hospital to have his chest opened up in order to save his life.
Until I finally gave up for the bullshit politics, old buddy judging, soring of the horses and our son being allergic to everything in a horse barn (not to mention at that point, even with paying customer’s horses in the barn, we were losing $500.00 a month, 500 we could not afford) I had worked with horses all my life.
And with all that experience, I learned two things. One, a horse has more muscle in one side of his hindquarters than a well built man has in his entire body. Two, I want my horses to love me, however, if they don’t love me, I want them to respect me, If they don’t respect me, I want them to damned afraid of me, because, a thousand pound animal, that is mostly pure muscle, can do things to a human that is simply unimaginable.
Three, I also learned a whole lot about Behavior Modification. Works great with horses, and Joe Webb, in his book, “The Care and Training of the Tennessee Walking Horse” used and taught this method to change behaviors long before modern psychology turned to it. Old Joe, he gets a lot of criticism but he knew his stuff. Also the cornerstone of changing human behavior, and boy do we need a bunch of it now. (And wap across the butt every now and then wouldn’t hurt either, see second paragraph).
en.wikipedia.org