"There was a dog chasing us," he told us. "That's why the horses were upset."
Precinct 3 deputies caught up with him at about 6am in the 2100 block of FM 2100 and say he was legally intoxicated. Pizano was told that he was going in for 'riding while intoxicated,' essentially a DWI for horse riders.
"I got plenty of laughs of it it," said Pizano. "It made me so mad, because who is going to get charged with that?"
But it is a charge that Precinct 3 says is rarely used.
"If he is intoxicated, he not paying attention like someone who wasn't and a horse is a big animal," said Cpt. Jon Moore with Harris County Precinct 3. "If a car hits a horse, it's gonna hurt a lot of things."
Pizano was handcuffed and placed into the back of the patrol car when he says something else set him off. His cowboy hat, given to him by his deceased father, was missing and then he says he noticed a deputy was wearing it.
"They were joking around and put it on. Thats' what irritated me, because he put it on. And I was like, that belongs to me father who is deceased right now, passed away just a couple of years ago, and that's what ticked me off," said Pizano.
It angered him so much he was able to manipulate his handcuffs and trash the back of the patrol car.
"At which point he slipped the cuffs from behind his back to the front," said Cpt. Moore. "He is still cuffed and he starts kicking the door."
He ripped out the camera, which was off, and broke several other things in the back seat. Pizano says he regrets losing his cool and is not sure he'll ever venture off grass with his horse.
"I don't know if I'm going to ride again, at least on the streets," he said.
Precinct 3 says they never recovered at cowboy hat. As for Pizano, his horse was impounded that night and the D.A. decided to go with the charges of public intoxication and criminal mischief, instead of riding while intoxicated.
