One of my Mother's childhood horse stories:
She grew up on a backwoods farm in Minnisota (picture Ghostie's vacation, only with inbreeding & Indians in the 20's). One day she's out gathering eggs in the barnyard, plucking one from under a tree, one from on top of a stack of boxes, etc., and siging some God-Awful Hymn at the top of her lungs. Given the operatic style of the time (remember Citizen Kane?) and the isolation of the poor animal, you can imagine it's panic as it ran willie-nillie into the creek and broke its neck.
In those days, if you broke your horse (especially in the early days of the depression), it was tantamount to losing the farm, since the horse was the plow, the planter, the cultivator, the truck, the bus, the frieght wagon, the tractor, the harvester, the logger, and the herding tool. A dead horse meant a dead family in a place with a three month summer and 60 below winters.
Grandpa became a Pinkerton Agent that year. Mom still scares the horses when she sings.
