Monty Roberts

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

A coroner’s inquest in Middlesbrough,
County Durham, United Kingdom,
ruled on October 20 that the March 2 death of
Middleton Equestian Centre stable girl
Alyson Carter, 19, was an accident. Contrary
to standard procedure, Carter removed the bridle
of a three-year-old stallion named Ski, then
tried to maneuver him into his stall by hitting
him on the neck, and when he wouldn’t go,
struck him on the rump with the bristle end of a
broken stable brush. Ski kicked her on the left
side of the face with both feet.

The incident drew notoriety because
Ski had been ridden only by Monty Roberts,
author of the best-selling autobiography T h e
Man Who Listens To Horses, which inspired
the film The Horse Whisperer. The veracity of
Roberts’ claims for himself have been challenged
by relatives and former associates,
though not the validity of his nonviolent training
methods, and Roberts was sued recently by
Carolyn and Christopher Carradine of Santa
Barbara, California, for allegedly ruining the
health of a horse by riding him “to the point of
extraordinary fatigue” in pursuit of an untamed
mustang during the making of a BBC documentary
entitled The Real Horse Whisperer.