By Thomas Chambers
Adam Hollingsworth, aka the Dreadhead Cowboy, would be wearing a homemade cape and a bulging Speedo if he weren’t doing this.
Cosmic justice would dictate that something like this would happen to Hollingsworth, maybe just from 35th Street to 43rd, which is the next exit. That’s a lot shorter than the six to eight fucking miles he ran to beat his horse, NuNu, to within a half-inch of his life. One report had the distance at 7.5 miles.
There are very long horse races in the world, but they are carefully regulated at a more leisurely pace, and certainly not on concrete.
This sonuvabitch, who is nothing but a grandstanding maniacal egotist and says he loves horses, absolutely cannot love horses, if he knows anything about horses.
He made sure to stream the ride live and had his posse on pimped-out motorcycles escorting him. Nice.
I didn’t follow the story much, at first. The typically rote reporting said this idiot was stopped, arrested, and the horse taken away to Chicago Animal Care & Control. Fine.
It did not keep me from the revulsion of seeing this ignorant ass storming that horse down the new concrete of the Dan Ryan. I literally twinge watching things like this, and it hurt to watch every stride.
All things considered, a horse puts many times his own weight on each leg in every stride. Tons on his front legs. It’s a miracle that this horse didn’t fracture any or all of his legs and go down right on the pavement – although we don’t know yet about any broken bones.
Apparently, this self-proclaimed horse lover did not have a proper saddle blanket on the horse: saddle sores. NuNu also did not have any shoes on. Not that you ever, EVER run a horse on concrete. And that horse was running, it’s mane and tail both horizontal in the wind of his speed.
Then, I saw another video and dove deeper.
I saw the bloody front left hoof broken in half from the absolute top to absolute bottom. Inside the U-shape of the hoof is very soft tissue, hence the use of horseshoes. Imagine the grinding-down his hooves took to expose that tissue.
When they finally stopped the publicity-seeking moron and arrested him, the horse was left to stand on a grassy parkway. Knucklehead Hollingsworth sat side-saddle then stood up on his two feet on the saddle, reveling in his twisted “achievement.” The horse didn’t dare lift even one hoof, knowing he would fall over.
This is as close as I could come to the video of police loading NuNu into a CPD horse trailer. It’s cut short. But I saw the horse shaking so uncontrollably, his legs shivering, he had a tortured time walking up the shallow-angled ramp into the van, feeling unable to even set down a hoof.
ABC7’s Leah Hope reported that Hollingsworth told her he whipped the horse at one point DURING the run to get him back up after he had fallen down. Will we see the “cowboy’s” GoPro of that? She also said that after a couple days in equine care, NuNu had trouble standing for more than 10 minutes.
Cause/effect, here’s what that means. It is highly likely that he either already has the symptoms of laminitis, separation of the hoof from the inner foot, or that he will develop it later, if he lives. Who knows how much heat damage there was to his organs, or the onset of skeletal damage. What about the broken-in-half hoof? Will it survive? They’re saying he’ll never be ridden again, if he lives.
If a horse does not have the ability to stand on all four legs, he dies. Most famously, it happened to Secretariat and Barbaro.
Now, I wanted to know more about how a guy like this is created. Chicago Tonight obliged.
If he bought his first horse two years ago, he didn’t take any of that time to learn about them. The horse in this feature, Prince, is 13. Hollingsworth said he bought NuNu just months ago. It appears he prefers paints.
It makes sense his four horses might be stabled in Crete. That’s where the old Balmoral harness race track was located.
He also apparently took the GoFundMe dodge – currently at more than $87,000/2,000 donations with money pouring in – to raise money. It’s very expensive to feed and take care of horses, and also himself. How many suckers are there in this world? Who assumes he knows how to take care of a horse?
But perhaps the most revolting aspect of this is Hollingsworth instantaneously pulling the victim card. Along with the people defending him.
He was also aggressive.
“If I’m willing to go to jail for something like that, that was worth going to jail for,” Hollingsworth said. “I didn’t mean no harm on my horse at all. I’m a horse-loving person, an animal-loving person. My focus is kids’ lives matter and if a person can’t agree with that I don’t know what to call you.”
He’s also calling on the mayor, rappers and whoever else to bail him out.
Some defenders said he didn’t mean to do it. That (riding the horse) wasn’t his focus, it was on kids killed in urban violence.
How about taking the horse, slowly, into the community, build camaraderie, as he has done? If he says he meant no harm to the horse, then he’s just plain stupid. But he got a whole afternoon of fame. Which was his TOP priority. He even asked permission previously to do this same thing and was, obviously, rejected by authorities.
What he did was not funny or cute or even effective. He didn’t carry a sign or flag explaining what he was trying to say! All people know is that he inflicted extreme duress on a horse. By rights, he should lose all credibility.
If there is going to be backlash on the order of “what about the children?,” yes, it’s a worthy issue. But showing children senseless cruelty to a magnificent animal seems extremely counterproductive.
Humanity has long considered animals to be substandard and subservient to them. “It’s only an animal.” But there is no excuse for inflicting such sadistic pain on a horse for your self-obsessed ego and need for adulation.
Prosecutors charged Hollingsworth with felony animal cruelty, reckless conduct, trespass to state land, and traffic violations.
If they drop all charges relating to occupying the Dan Ryan Expressway, that would be fine with me. That would acknowledge the essence of his protest and give him a huge break.
But all of his horses should be taken away from him and he should be ordered to never be around horses again for the rest of his life, not even to muck stalls. There are laws that cover it. Thirty days in the clink seems appropriate, too.
You could not blame NuNu if he loses the will to live. At some point, I fully expect to read about his euthanization.
Or would murder be a better word?
–
Tom Chambers is our longtime horse racing correspondent. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on September 25, 2020