Horse (non)sense

I'll apologize at the front-end. I don't usually think people dying is funny. That's why I refrained from posting this yesterday, when I first read it.

OK, enough with the apology. Here's the item, posted by my Ledger-Enquirer cohort Tess Hollis:

A 35-year-old Chambers County man was killed early Tuesday morning when his car caught fire after he hit a horse.

Wyatt Finch was driving near Valley, Ala., on County Road 388 when he struck a horse, causing his car to catch fire. The accident happened around 6:20 a.m. Alabama State Troopers are investigating the accident.

The original item can be found rightcheer.

So why did I decide to post it? Not because a man dying is funny. But because that first sentence is maybe my favorite piece of newswriting ever. The brevity is its genius.

But does hitting a horse really cause a car to catch fire? Just any horse? (Or, as my co-worker Nick muses, was it one of those alcohol-laden Clydesdales) Was it a ridden horse? A stray? A wild horse? Ahhhhhh! We must know!!!

I don't know if Mr. Finch is married. If so, I apologize to his widow. I'd like to think, however, that if I was driving a car that hit a horse and then blew up, I'd be looking down from the clouds, chuckling about it. "Well, that's one way to go..."