Animal Cruelty

Sure, you've heard of snakes on a plane. Now how about a runaway horse?

There was a  Boeing 747 heading for Liege, Belgium from JFK in NYC when things got AFU because a horse got loose in the cargo hold.

 It was important for this horse to be transported to Europe, and he refused to swim, so the plane was the option his owner chose. But the pony got partway out of its stall at 31,000 feet up. The crew contacted Air Traffic Control with might be the first-ever request to cancel a flight because Mr Ed was loose.

YouTube channel "You Can See ATC" reconstructed a video of the event, in which we can hear the pilot say “We don’t have a problem (…) flying-wise, but we cannot get the horse back secured.”

The airline said the plane hit turbulence - the exact reason I avoid air travel and horseback riding - and that spooked the steed. It got caught up the stall and, in spite of the best efforts of veterinarians and ground staff, needed to be euthanized.

Sad story, but John Cuticelli, the head of the corporation that handles animal quarantine and export at John F. Kennedy International Airport, says, "The horse jumped and managed to get its two front legs over the (front) barrier and then got jammed. It’s only the second time in all the years I’ve been doing this that I’ve ever seen that happen. And we do thousands of horses a year. A very unfortunate event — but that horse was spooked.”

There was an episode of "Modern Family" in which Javier Delgado ("Manny's father, and Gloria's ex-husband...and lover" as he puts it) claims to be able to read the mood of racehorses by looking at their faces. 

Well, I am no one's ex-husband, but I don't even have to look at a horse in the face to tell it does not want to get on a plane and fly to Belgium. They want to stay home and canter around in the meadow. 

Please stop this nonsense!