I witnessed a pretty bad accident a few years ago at my local 4h club horse show. It was during our fair.. and I was watching the barrel racing..and the girl was coming back as fast as that horse would move, and she had a belt buckle on...well when she went to stop the horse her belt buckle got caught on the horn, and she couldn't lean back (thats how the horse was trained to stop) so it kept running fast...and it seen the fence coming...tried to jump it but didn't make it and landed straight down on a pole and the pole impailed the QH mare right in the chest, and the girl went flying in the air and landed on some horses in the crowd, along with her horse flying up and coming down onto her....fortunatly there was a vet at the fair just visiting, and the horse took off running and I was the one that actually caught the mare..she had a HUGE hole in between her two front legs, with muscle etc hanging from the hole...the vet stiched her up etc...no one had knew the pole went into her until we cought her...it was amazing that mare lived..everyone was shooken up a lot and I think they shut the show down for the day!! It has really devastated me to see that and I fear when I ever watch barrel racing!
