Looking at the jockey standings at Philly I would say no.

In my opinion, I think shooting horses up with steroids, giving them pain medication so they can race lame is far more serious than VM kicking the horse in the stomach. I don't think he should have kicked the horse, but there are worse things out there. I remember a story at River Downs where the barn people (not all of them, just a few) were hitting the horses with shovels.

Sometimes you have to get aggressive when handling animals. Thing is shouldn't be done at the gate and on Int'l TV. Yup the horse huggers will turn out, they live for this stuff.

I held my cat upside down before and dropped him to see if he'd land on his feet, but I never kicked a horse.

What, then I shouldn't talk about the AA meeting I attended with Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears? :D

I feel like we're listening to confessions now... lol.

That was funny. Hey, AA or drug rehab is a great place to meet hot women. Yasmin Bleath (spelling?) met her husband in drug rehab.

I saw this incident....the horse who Molina kicked acted up before going into the gate and got caught under the gate briefly while acting up inside of the gate.

I was kind of happy the horse was delaying the start, because I had singled the horse breaking from the far outside....but anyway, he should be fined for what he did....I thought it was a punk move....and it was caught on camera.

It was an early season 2-year-old he kicked, and not a seasoned race horse.

When I walked hots at Churchill Downs training center a few years ago, I had a 2-year-old Wild Rush filly that pretty much was more than a handful for me when she wanted to be. She stepped on my toes a couple of times, she head-butted me when I stopped at her bucket to see if she wanted a drink, on some days she'd get ignorant and take off around the same corner, almost pulling me to the ground a few times. She was always a pain in the ass to keep reasonably still while she got her bath.

I found her amusing though, and loved working around her more than the other ones. I had two others who had no personality at all...and my 4th one was a Skip Away filly who tried biting everything that walked by her stall.

OK, I admit I have smacked the crap out of Buck, but it isn't like he didn't know it was coming. Bit me in the back while I was closing a gate we had just walked though. He knew it was coming as soon as I turned around because he had the fear of God look in his eyes and was backing up as far as his lead rope would let him go. I gave him a good loud "NO" and a smack across the chest with the lead rope. Was that abuse? I think not.

There is disciplining a horse and then there is abuse. If this guy had kicked the horse immediately after the incident in the gate occurred (and I don't know what happened in the gate, maybe he was kicking out so kicking back is warranted). BUT if the horse had no idea why he was being kicked then YES it is abuse and he should get kicked in the stomach.

Hopefully there won't be one involving peanut butter.

did he land on his feet?

Like Pais, is this reflective of what sort of mate you like in life?

Not from me, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised to hear it from someone else.

I never really thought about it.

I doubt it. Wouldn't be surprised if someone admitted to sniffing glue.

If that's true, he should have no trouble in finding a suitable girl... most chicks are flat out bitches like that, so he should have a variety to choose from.

I'm in the same boat as him, though... I like to be around horses with some spunk too. Push button horses typically bore me.

Depends on what sort of game the horse likes to play. We had one that would 'fake attack' you when you went in his stall to feed him. He got a real kick out of scaring the newbies on the staff. The last horse I leased on the other hand liked to show off everytime he tried something differently and would fire off 3 big bucks while schooling because he thought he was a hot shot. That was cute, the former...not so much!

Did you ever strap two cats back to back and drop them both?
I've never tried it, but I'd expect the same outcome from putting peanut butter on both sides of a piece of wonder bread and seeing what happens.

To me, and I'm not talking about the VM incident, I'd say kick them before they kick you.
And "mane pulling" really ain't that big a deal. Horses don't mind much, especially if burdocks are involved.
They'll get over it before humans do.

Listen to ATRAB it's going to be discussed on there.

dude was taken off the rest of his mounts for the day and is in BIG,BIG,Trouble! Stewards are gonna whack his peepee!!!