Horse on Fire!

A couple days ago, Chris Cooley posted an entry on his blog with the promise of video footage to come:

We were cruising around on our new land in Wyoming the other day and we found an old dead cow. So we decided that we would get rid of it by setting it on fire. Needless to say, it was a success. I will post the video of it soon, but for now here are some pictures.

How intriguing. In a deeply offensive kind of way.

Apparently, however, friends and family members had a Come to Jesus with Chris, and he reconsidered his original idea.  He followed up with another entry yesterday, saying:

I'm writing this post with complete regret.  Normally, I'm not super concerned with who I offend or bother by my posts, but I have been strongly encouraged by enough important parties in my life not to publish the video.   I am aware that the voting consensus on the site was an overwhelming yes on watching the video and most are excited about the footage, including myself, but it just isn't going to work out this time.

Chris goes on to clarify his intentions, lest anyone incorrectly assume that he thinks of animal burning as a "just-for-sport" kind of activity.  Not the case.  When Chris set an animal on fire, he does it for measured practical reasons:

I would also like to clear up a couple things about the burning, a least for anyone who I may have offended.  Last year I bought somewhere close to 400 acres of ranch land in Wyoming.  A couple days ago we were riding our four wheelers around and came upon this wretched, stinking, rotting horse corpse.  We thought it was a cow at first, but upon further review found that it was a horse.  The horse had clearly been dead for over a year and needed to be taken care of.  We have no idea about the cause of the horses death or how it happened upon our land, none the less, it was there rotting away.  After seeking some advice I was given a couple of options, the first was taking the horse to the dead animal pit, another being the city dump and finally, to burn the horse.  In my opinion the most reasonable option was to burn the horse.

And then make a movie out of it. Chris concludes:

Finally, I would like to say that I love and respect animals.  I own four dogs and two cats, I grew up with horses and think their amazing.  I meant no disrespect to the horse.

In order to really drive the point home, Chris posts this picture with his entry. (And who among us doesn't enjoy a photo of a stallion running wild on a beach?)

Ultimately, Chris likely dodged a bullet with this one. There are antics and then there's, well, Chris' old blog post.

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