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The family of the 9-year-old claims she was given a horse to ride that was inadequately broken.
By Times staff writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 12, 2001
The family of a 9-year-old Zephyrhills girl killed in a 1999 horse-riding accident has sued the owners of a Thonotosassa stable where the girl was killed.
According to a lawsuit filed in Circuit Court in Hillsborough County last week, Kim Armstrong Cornell, mother of Jamie Leigh Armstrong, sued Riverside Stables owners Toni Levine and Leslie Endris, claiming the girl was placed on a horse that was not ready to be ridden.
The horse, according to Hillsborough officials at the time, ran out of control and crashed through a wood fence. One of the railings struck Jamie across the bridge of the nose. She was wearing a helmet, but the blow caused a skull fracture. She died three days after the Dec. 10, 1999 accident in a Tampa hospital.
The lawsuit claims Levine and Endris were eager to finish work on the day of the accident and put Jamie on a horse that wasn't fully broken as they led other horses to food. The horse bolted, "with Jamie Armstrong holding on for dear life," the complaint states.
The lawsuit does not specify damages sought and demands a jury trial.
The old telephone number for Riverside Stables has been disconnected, and directory assistance listed no number for the business.