The Strange Death of Frank Hayes on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Horse jockey Frank Hayes, died on this day in 1923. Hayes was a 22-year-old jockey of Elmont, New York, who died of a heart attack while racing and collapsed on the horse, which nonetheless crossed the finish line first, still carrying his body. The horse (Sweet Kiss) never raced again. It was claimed that Sweet Kiss was nicknamed "Sweet Kiss of Death" for the rest of her life.

That's not the only strange death involving horses. In the year 882, Louis III, king of West Francia, whilst mounting his horse to pursue a girl, hit his head on a beam and fractured his skull. 

Sigurd the Mighty, a ninth-century Norse earl of Orkney, was killed by an enemy he had beheaded several hours earlier. He'd tied the man's head to his horse's saddle, but while riding home one of its protruding teeth grazed his leg. He died from the infection. 

In 1131, Crown Prince Philip of France died while riding through Paris because his horse tripped over a black pig running out of a dung heap. 

In 2012, Erica Marshall, a 28-year-old British veterinarian in Ocala, Florida, died when the horse she was treating in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber kicked the wall, released a spark from its horseshoes, and triggered an explosion.