anti-horse attitude stinks!

eventerbabe

eventerbabe

Well-Known Member
Dec 16, 2004
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maybe this is just a problem in my area, but why are people so anti-horse??? when i went home to visit my mum at the weekend i had a read of our local community newsletter. there were 2 articles complaining about horse riders. one was from the forestry commision, saying that horses were churning up paths and making it unsafe for children, they even banded about the statement "environmental terrorism", i mean, come on guys, take a reality check!!! the other was regarding a new access route that has been set up (supposedly for everyone including riders) yet people were complaining that "hoofprints had been found on the path", erm, so what?? its open to horses aswell as everyone else.

what rights do we have as riders?? it seems to me that if someone spooks our horses and they end up damaging cars/property/people, we are at fault. if we get hit on the road (god forbid) again we are at fault and the murderers who kill horses with their cars get off scot free. when i'm out riding in the woods behind my yard (always at a walk, or i slow to a walk when i see dog walkers) it seems like if the dog walkers cant control their dogs, or the dogs scare toby that its my fault. i get people complaining to me about horse muck in the woods (which is not mine, its the people from the yard up the road). well, at least it isn't disease ridden like all the dog crap i have to pick my way around!!

sorry this has gone on a bit. but what rights do we really have?? it seems like as far as horse riders are concerned, we are always at fault. when are other people (dog walkers/pedestrians/parents) going to take responsibility for themselves and also start treating us with some respect?
 
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I agree. Like if a car wizzed by my horse and he gets a fright I can't control my horse I mean hang on a bloddy minute. I think people should learn a little more about horses. It's just ignorence that causes those kind of complaints EB.
 
i must admit i feel like you, but there was an incident last summer that made me think a bit......

(i sort of felt bad though in the summer hacking out through our village, as dog owners have to pick up there dog's poo, and my horse poo'd all the way down a residential road with children out playing ball :rolleyes: :rolleyes: was a bit embarrassed, and like someone pointed out, we dont pay road tax :) )

i can see dog walkers attitudes when they are poo picking and then see our horse mob come down the road and mess it up more than their dog ever would :rolleyes:
 
I agree eventerbabe - I often feel got at. In our local woods, there are TWO bridleways and the rest of it Forestry Commission hard made up vehicle tracks (which we are not allowed on). HOwver if they are logging, they use the only 2 bridleways and churn them up so they are impassible, so I use their tracks!

If they catch me, they yell and scream at me, but not the dogwalkers (who are also trespassing as they are not footpaths either, just unmarked tracks). I don't churn them up and walk on them when it is wet - had a little canter on one yesterday but the damage I would do compared to their landrovers is insignificant.

They have also erected height restrictoin barriers in ALL their car parks, so if you want to box you have to park on the road as you can't get into a car park. Or in the one carpark you are allowed to park - they set aside an area for horse boxes, if you ever try to use it it is full of effing cars! And you can't turn round in it.

I was there with Rosie one weekend, and the police were there, and I asked them if they might ask some of the cars to move (given they were parked illegablly and folks were just sitting in them) looked at me as if i was bonkers, did nothing!

At the entrance to the bridleways, you often can't get in or out cos of cars parked across them - I took the number of one and passed it to the police and got a letter back saying so what? So what, the differnce was that the 20 extra minutes it took me to get out (via an ILLEGAL route i.e. along a footpath across a ditch (couldn't get under the heigh barrier on a horse/...) meant that the short journey I have from the woods to home was in the semi dark - not safe at all, due to a driver who parked right across the exit - they often leave you not enough space but you can squeeze thorugh, but often have to clip the car as you go...

Yes, I often feel we are hated, have no rights, and no one realises that we are the most vulnerable road users - who would prefer not to use roads but have no options as they tended to build motorways cutting bridleways in half but giving you no way of getting from one side to the other.
 
i've had people blocking the entrance to the woods by us. the pathway has a log across it (suspended by about 3 feet) with a gap at one side and people insist on parking as close to the gap as they possibly can. although i scared 1 lady by riding very, very close to her jeep when i was trying to get access and she hasn't parked there again.

open spaces are for everyone to enjoy, i don't see why horse riders should be victimised.

don't know if anyone saw landward a few weeks ago? there was a dispute about a track highlighted on there. the locals had such a passionate hatred of local horse riders it was actually quite frightening. and i, personally, felt that their attitude was totally unjustified.
 
Its not so bad around us because most people have something to do with horses but there is the odd exception where people start having a go at us for no reason, one woman had a go at us about the horse poo on the road outside her house because it went on the wheels of her car and onto her drive! we told her to get a life... My friend got verbally abused down our common once and she was on the proper tracks etc, however the council dont do anything to make the tracks less boggy which is very annoying even after 3 weeks drought in august one was still quite muddy and its surrounded by trees!
 
We often come across people who are "anti horse" while out riding although the majority of people we come across are very polite as are we. We have a bridleway that goes through woods at the bottom of a zoo park and often come across dogwalkers and cyclists. The reason they use our path though is because that particular stretch is a special surface and doesn't get muddy whereas the footpath that runs along side which is for walkers can get quite treacherous and we are therefore aware of each other and rarely encounter problems on that bit. However another part of the track is very muddy and deep caused by people with motorcross bikes churning it up and there are a couple of places that we do have to go onto the footpath to get past and we are often met there by people complaining about us using it. We usually reply with a well you use our path so why can't we use yours and that does tend to shut them up. Another route we use is a private track through a couple of fields which we do have permission to use but is not open to the public. We often ride through at a canter as it is open and you can see clearly along the whole route. One day we were cantering along when a man walking about 5 dogs all off the lead on this track came running up to us and started to yell at us that we wasn't allowed there. We slowed up to a walk and he started to tell us that horses were a menace and he was going to speak to the farmer about us. My friend got her mobile out of her pocket and said to him ok then we will see about this and started to look for the farmers number telling him she was going to ring him there and then to complain about him walking his dogs along there as it was a private route and he immediately legged it. Needless to say we haven't seen him there since.
 
SORRY...............BUT i dont think telling some lady to get a life when your/my horse s**t's all over the road outside her house and it ends up on her driveway is that great, in our defense it is unavoidable but... (trying to see it from her point of view :rolleyes: it cant be that nice ) i know its impractical for us to get off our horses and carry a shovel around with us hacking :rolleyes: to clear up behind us, but i can see the other side as well (sometimes) and comments like that under those situations dont help give riders a great name either :) SORRRRRYYYYY :) just makes us look as rude and as igorant and uncaring as the others you are complaining about

sorry - i know there is a genuine big issue as well and i myself have had igornant drivers beeping as they go past us thinking it is funny - but the above situation must be a bit hard for the public to tolerate sometimes esp with dumb comments being shouted at them as well, that just makes their case stronger and antagonises them

sorry :rolleyes: - i agree wholey with eventerbabe, but there are a few situations WE need to be aware of as well like the one above
 
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can't say i agree - i think horse riders do become a problem.

what rights do horse riders have that says they can allow their horse to poo on the road - i got very annoyed the other day when i stepped in a massive horse dump on the PAVEMENT :mad:

people have a right to get annoyed with them - they hold up traffic, damage property, but apparantly it is not at all the rider's fault.

If a spooked horse damaged my car, and the rider refused to take the blame, I would be FURIOUS :mad:

If Happy kicked somebodies car, i would pay for the entire thing, it's my choice to take her on the road, if she hurts something then it is MY responsibility

And if a rider is not wearing reflective gear and they get hit by a car, it IS their own fault :mad:

I'm not saying the non-horse community are completely innocent, but it's not a case of everybody out to get us
 
I've only come across this once, we have a dirt slip road that leads off the main road down into the river. Its one of two places where the bank is sloped enough to walk down into the river on horseback.

Somebody keeps blocking the slip road, one day we went down and they had cut down a tree in such a way that it fell across the entrance :mad: but usually they just block it up with bushes,logs and branches.... they aren't too smart whoever they are, it doesn't bother us we just jump whatever they put there but one day we went down there was a man trying to haul his kajak over the big tangle of logs and bushes!
 
hApPiNeSs said:
can't say i agree - i think horse riders do become a problem.

what rights do horse riders have that says they can allow their horse to poo on the road - i got very annoyed the other day when i stepped in a massive horse dump on the PAVEMENT :mad:

people have a right to get annoyed with them - they hold up traffic, damage property, but apparantly it is not at all the rider's fault.

If a spooked horse damaged my car, and the rider refused to take the blame, I would be FURIOUS :mad:

If Happy kicked somebodies car, i would pay for the entire thing, it's my choice to take her on the road, if she hurts something then it is MY responsibility

And if a rider is not wearing reflective gear and they get hit by a car, it IS their own fault :mad:

I'm not saying the non-horse community are completely innocent, but it's not a case of everybody out to get us
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happiness, i wasn't saying that owners shouldn't pay for damage. of course i'd pay if toby or bonnie damaged anything BUT if a motorist was to damage MY horse with their car, they get away scot free and don't even get punished. the onus seems to be that every incident involving a horse is the horses fault (and hence the owners). non-horsey people seem to have a very poor understanding of the way they should behave around horses. i've rounded on a parent and his kid once when hacking because the kid ran up to toby screaming and waving her arms and sent toby loopy. her dad tried to argue with me but even he could see why i'd shouted at the girl to go away and stop screaming at my horse.

just to add, i ALWAYS wear reflecive gear when hacking , i ALWAYS thank motorists, cyclists and pedestrians when we pass them and i ALWAYS go round with my car and a shovel and scoop my horses poo into the side ;)
 
maybe we should remind everyone that horses as a mode of transport came before cars etc so the rights for horses and their riders using roads shouldn't differ from vehicles.

personally I dont take any notice to what people say, generally people are going to compain about something anyway so when they moan about us it leaves some other poor s*d alone.
 
kayjayhorses said:
personally I dont take any notice to what people say, generally people are going to compain about something anyway so when they moan about us it leaves some other poor s*d alone.
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that is very true. i used to work part time as a waitress when i was an undergrad and boy did people like making a fuss out of nothing. the last place i worked was accused of causing food poisoning from a can of pepsi!! turned out the complainants had been out drinking the night before, were hung over and thought they could make a quick buck at our expense.
 
you go back and shovel your horses poo - thats highly commendable :) and every horse rider and horse should wear hi-viz (in case you become seperated)

just a thought but........of course non-horsey people have a poor understanding of how to behave around horses :) alot of people may not know any different, and if you dont know horses, not all of it is 'just' common sense, and how do you inform NON horsey people - its not like they are going to buy 'your horse' mag every month. :D

im NOT excusing the deliberate bad horse attitudes
 
dog and cat 'poo' has to be disposed of safely because of how diseases can be caught of it, horse and other herbivore poo can be just thrown away normally, so as far as that goes horse poo is safe...

well this is what i got when i was at animal college, carnivore poo can't just go in normal bins.
 
ridingtomy000 said:
thats true sweuzo, but still not that nice to have one depostited outside your gate :)
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my nan would have liked nothing more, than some fertilizaer for the garden :D she used to go picking it off the roads near where she lived.
 
I must admit I haven't read absolutely all of this thread, but I'm going to put in a plea here to riders... PLEASE remember your manners! We slowed down for three separate horse riders last weekend, and not one of them thanked us. This makes me see red - so what effect is it going to have on a non horsey person?

And I have seen people hurtle past walkers on their horses - it costs very little to come back to walk and speak to people (even if you only smile and say "hello"). To most people walking, a horse and rider are large and intimidating, and if they're travelling at speed, look monstrous..

I agree that riders don't always get decent treatment - but I'm afraid I can see quite a lot of the other side of the story when I see riders being so discourteous...

Ross
 
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