Owner: horse dragging was "bad moment"

 (WTNH) -- A horse is home safe after reportedly being dragged behind a truck in Stafford Springs Sunday.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but one man says it is just a snapshot in time, and doesn't tell the whole story of one man trying to get his horse back into the barn.

A neighbor took a picture of the horse tied to the back of a pick up truck. It looks like the owner is dragging it down the road, but 86-year-old Culver Modisette, the man behind the wheel, says Annie went to the barn next door and wouldn't come back.

"I put a lead on her and started walking her down the driveway," Culver said. "She was in heat and I did not know that, and she turned and whirled and yanked me through the woods."

So then he tied Annie to the back of the truck and when he pulled away she started to buck.

"She jumped around, thrashed around and finally fell," said Culver, "and I got out and cut her loose, picked her up and took her by the leash, shortened it up and walked her back here."

Culver's neighbor took a picture of the horse as it was flailing around and sent it to the media, but Culver says it was only a moment in time. He never dragged the horse down the driveway like his neighbors said.

"People that have the stable up there chose to take pictures rather than to help me," said Modisette. "It would've been nice if they would've perhaps helped and wouldn't have needed the pictures, but be that as it may. So in a nutshell, it was a bad moment. I'm sorry that it happened. It wasn't premeditated. I had really no choice, I had no other way to get her down."

A veterinarian visited Annie Monday, giving her a clean bill of health, saying she just had some minor scratches and cuts.