Random thinking is funny.

So, I was thinking about Back to the Future III and I remembered the driving force of the antagonist Mad Dog Tannen. His horse threw its shoe and as a result threw him as well and he shot it. Now, he doesn't strike me as the brightest candle ever lit and he was drunk at the time but even horse thieves weren't renowned for shooting their horses when they get mad. Shooting a horse is something you do when they break a leg or are otherwise going to die suffering. When you want someone to seem like a horrible person you have them just leave the horse to die. Even assuming he's an alcoholic idiot it's unlucky he would have had the ability to shoot his horse if he was drunk enough to not realize shooting a healthy horse meant he'd have to walk back into town to shoot Doc Brown.

And then I remembered the recent video they made. Mad Dog Tannen's father built a saloon at the town's founding. A business like that really helps a town grow and prosper. Why didn't Mad Dog own the saloon? At some point that his family lost that business. He grew up at that saloon, learning from his father for better or worse. That saloon was going to be his one day. Then it was gone. Whatever money was set aside, that disappeared as well as Tannen does not look like a man with a large supply of capital. That horse that he shot was likely one of the last things he owned. Outlaw or not he shot his trusty horse. He lost everything.

Now I have to remind myself that in a deleted scene he shot the sheriff in the back on the way to the shootout to keep from thinking Doc Brown is an asshole for not paying up. And that scene was removed because it was "too dark." As dark as a man with nothing but a gun and a horse having to shoot his trusty steed? Good call guys.