A disturbing video of a drowning horse has sparked a vicious feud between a reality TV show family.
The video, which was shared on December 26 by Terra Ward, the daughter of the late Darrell Ward, star of the History Channel series Ice Road Truckers, has garnered significant attention online.
The clip depicted her brother, Reno Ward, pulling a dead horse out of a lake in Powell County, Montana.
The horse, whose name is Red, was bought by Tatum Hansen, a college rodeo standout at the University of Montana. This purchase followed the tragic death of Tatum’s previous animal due to a rattlesnake bite.
In May, Tatum and Reno, who has also been featured on Ice Road Truckers, joined forces to locate the ideal ‘bulldogging horse’ for competitive steer wrestling. That search led them to Red, hailing from Cheyenne.
‘I was like, “God dang, this thing’s [Red] a fire rocket. He’s got a big motor.” So I called Reno and told him, “Yeah, this is exactly what we need”,’ Tatum told Cowboy State Daily.
Two weeks later, on June 11, Reno and Tatum took Red and other horses to move cattle near Deer Lodge.
As the day went on, they said Red swam in multiple ponds, ‘acting like a big water bug,’ but by the third pond, the horse met its tragic fate.
Video captured Reno riding on top of the horse as Red started to panic and flail in the water before going under. Another clip then showed Reno and others joking around on shore while Red’s lifeless body floated in the pond.
Now, he and his sister, Terra, are fighting as she publicly called her brother out for the animal’s death.
‘[Reno] should have known to take that tie-down off,’ Terra said in a December 27th post. ‘I didn’t know the video would blow up like it did. I just didn’t want Reno to buy another f***ing horse.’
In the footage, Reno was seen looking to the pond as one of the men with him said ‘F***!’ as they watched Red float in the water.
He was then seen swimming in the water toward the deceased horse as one of them passed along a rope to him to attach to Red, while another callously told Reno ‘you can ride him like a boat, you’ll be all right,’ adding that it’s ‘the cheapest boat you ever had.’
Reno eventually got ahold of the horse and laughed as he hooked the rope onto the animal and dragged it to shore.
Once he got close, Reno hopped out of the pond and continued to pull the animal until a pickup truck came and got Red out of the water completely.
At one point, Reno was seen drying off in the grass as he stuck his tongue out and laughed.
He told Cowboy State Daily that the clip of him and Red in the water ‘was very clipped and edited,’ and that the horse ‘didn’t drown with me on him.’
A second clip, obtained by DailyMail.com, showed the entire 20 minutes of Red and Reno struggling in the water.
He was seen on top of the stressed horse before eventually being thrown off by the anxious animal. Reno appeared to watch on as the animal struggled.
On the same day she shared what she thought about her brother in relation to the video, Reno filed a restraining order against his sister.
When she asked an officer what the order entailed, Terra said that she was not allowed to ‘have direct or indirect contact with him.’ She then posted on Facebook about the order filed against her and was arrested.
‘And Friday night (Dec. 27) at 5 pm, they arrested me on a violation of the restraining order because I posted that I got a restraining order on Facebook, and my bond for a misdemeanor charge was $5,000 cash,’ she said.
She spent a night in jail, but now that she’s out, Terra has refused to stop posting about Reno’s actions that day, calling her brother ‘a piece of sh**.’
The Powell County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the horse’s death as the department thanked those who brought the ‘disturbing video’ to their attention.
Powell County Sheriff Gavin Roselles told Cowboy State Daily that although the office rarely gets a case like this, they will ‘let justice take its course.’
‘But this is just one of those stories. Obviously, it has a lot of high emotion involved in it. As a former rancher myself, everybody has feelings toward the animals that they love dearly.’
Roselles said the investigation into the horse’s drowning, will go on ‘without emotion based solely on facts.’
‘And save determination or judgment until after that case is presented to the county attorney if it gets that far and let justice take its course,’ he added.
Janet Rose, the founder of Horse Haven Montana, told the outlet she will also continue to monitor Red’s tragic death that seems ‘entirely plausible’ in relation to Reno’s connection to it.
‘But here’s the thing that I would say: Be knowledgeable, be smart. Don’t take any animal into an environment that you are not familiar with and capable of dealing with,’ Rose added.
‘It’s first instinct is to fight or flight. So, if a horse panics, it’s very hard, obviously, for an individual to calm it down.’
The investigation is ongoing.
