Horses can be unpredictable (Video)

Near Ocean City, Maryland, Assateague Island National Seashore spans 37 miles of beautiful beaches. On there, more than 300 horses wander the beaches, the inland forests and the salt marshes. Tourists come far and wide to watch the animals – The law (posted on signs) require people to maintain a distance of 40 feet from the horses at all teams– even if horses come into an area where you are set up on the beach.

If horses do approach, calmly move away to a safe distance. While most of the island’s horses are skittish, those that live in the developed area around the beach have become conditioned to humans and see us as a food source–so they do what the Assateague Island Alliance calls “beach blanket raids. A video posted on Social Media perhaps reminds all of us to leave the beautiful and wild horses alone. An older woman is shown taking a plastic shovel and hitting one of the horses in what appears to be an attempt to shoo it away. The animal was sniffed around her beach blanket, it was nosing through the food she brought with her to the beach. 

She took a shovel and hit the horse

Someone shouts “watch out” shortly after the woman smacks the horse on its hindquarters, but it was too late. The horse had already kicked her. The horse wasn’t having any of it from the woman, and backs up and kicks. The woman bounces back, falls on the sand; she didn’t seem to be injured although she may have had the “wind let out of her sails” – we can only hope a lesson was learned. Watch the video, some people don’t realize how unpredictable the horses can be!