You guys that are critical of this very stressful situation need to understand a few things. The temp outside was around 35 degrees. The hole was pretty small, just big enough for the horse to be vertical. Rocky ground makes quick digging very difficult, even with a backhoe. His legs were stuck around the underground pipe so simply lifting him out was impossible. Untacking the horse would have been extremely difficult, dangerous, and freezing. The minute the horse's head submerges, the horse would have died. Keeping the bridle on was very important to keeping his head out of the water. The dog that was "abused" and hit was getting too close to Joe and needed to back off. A dog that close to a drowning horse was making a very stressful situation for Joe even more stressful. Dogs are predators and horses are prey. Dogs stress horses out. The rider told me that he had never been so cold in his life. This could have been a catastrophe. Thank goodness for careful and quick thinking. I would love to see you critics jump in your backhoe with nothing but lassos and navigate a very stressful situation like this in under 20 minutes. There wasn't time to gather up the dogs, get a good plan together, find tow straps, and go scuba diving with a thrashing horse in a tiny rocky hole. The horse would have died without fast action. This is a raw, authentic, uncut, unplanned effort to save a horse. Was everything done perfect? Pretty close. Nobody was hurt and the horse is doing great.