U.S. News

A Teen Competitor Allegedly Stabbed Three Rivals’ Horses at 2 AM Before a Barrel Racing Event

By Erica Coleman · June 4, 2026

At 2 AM on May 30, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police responded to a barn near the South Point Hotel Casino & Spa after a report of an injured horse. When officers arrived, they found three horses that had been “intentionally injured with a sharp object.”

All three horses sustained non-life-threatening injuries — lacerations that required veterinary treatment — but all three were unable to compete in the 2026 NBHA Professional’s Choice Las Vegas Super Show, the National Barrel Horse Association’s flagship event, which was being held that weekend at the South Point Arena and Equestrian Center.

The LVMPD Animal Cruelty Section was called to the scene. Investigators identified a teenage girl as a possible suspect based on one specific fact: she had authorized access to the barn. She was a competitor in the same event. She was there because she was supposed to be there.

Officers located her at a nearby hotel and took her into custody. She was transported to Clark County Juvenile Hall and charged with 12 counts of willful or malicious killing, maiming, or torturing an animal and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property valued at more than $5,000.

Her name has not been released because she is a minor.

The horses whose owners she is accused of targeting were not random animals. Barrel racing horses are trained athletes — athletes in the same event she was competing in. The horses she allegedly attacked were her competition. Their values, reflected in the felony property charges, exceed $5,000 each, and competitive barrel racing horses are frequently worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The NBHA issued a statement describing “an isolated incident” involving “the mistreatment of a limited number of equine athletes by an event competitor” and said all appropriate steps had been taken to ensure the wellbeing of all horses at the event. The association did not comment on the motive for the alleged attack.

The case is the second notable incident in recent months in which a young competitor has been accused of attacking a rival’s competition animal. In a separate Texas case that gained national attention, a teen was accused of killing a competitor’s show goat in what prosecutors described as an act of competitive jealousy. Neither case is connected to the other, but both involve young competitors in livestock and equestrian sport communities where competition begins early and runs deep.

Motive in the Las Vegas case has not been formally established. The investigation is ongoing.