500 - no-where to ride

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Orangehorse

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Fed up. You would think that on a farm of 500 acres there would be somewhere I could school my horse in peace. But no. All the flat fields are arable. All the grass fields are full of frisky cattle or out of bounds for silage and hay.

What is wrong with the paddock? Well apart from that it slopes, has a pear tree in it and the water trough it would be very hard to fit in a 20 metre circle, not to mention that it is a "starvation patch" and nearly bare of grass.

So I go out into the field in front of the house, whereupon 30 cattle come thundering towards me, so I go in, they go away, I go out again, they come back again. Horse is usually OK, but looking for any excuse at the moment. I don't want to fall off because
a. I don't want to fall off
b. The ground is hard
c. There is a cattle grid into the garden and a cattle grid out into the road and the thought of him thundering round chased by a herd of cattle is not a good one.

I used to be able to shut the cattle away, but the fence was untidy so instead of mending it my son took it away "to open up the fields." Me - cross.

So horse is not getting enough work at the moment. Going out for a hack tomorrow but there is no where to canter around here.
 
At least you are allowed to ride ride in the fields, even if they're not great.

I'm liveried on a very large estate and we're not allowed to ride in ANY off the fields. There is literally no-where at all to school, or even lunge. It sucks :(
 
I would swap you. Do you not have field margins round the crops? Can you not do a fair bit of schooling on a hack? Could you fence off with electric fencing a school in the field in front of the house so the cows learn to avoid it and assume it's on when you turn it off for schooling?

At least you're not on the edge of suburbia, where one is not permitted to build an outdoor school as it'll spoil the green gap between town suburbia and yet more suburbia on the edge of adjacent village. The road was closed in 1983 when they built The Estate, and beyond is bridleway leading back to road BUT it (the road as well as the bridleway bit) is dog walkers 'paradise' ie dogs allowed to wander freely without a lead when the owner has no means (or intention of) of recall. Consequently it is not unusual for you and daughter (on pony) to be cornered by two apparently ownerless large dogs who bark and bark at pony till it bolts. Owner appear round corner (on road) collects said dogs who have returned because rider came off (chase over, so unfit couldn't catch up with pony)and grabs dogs and disappear w/o a word.

If you carry on you do have 2 decent bits of verge to canter if you're lucky (this means no dogs in sight for the 10 seconds it takes to canter it - and fingers crossed), but it ends at a fast road off the estate (leading to The Motorway) which is also populated by The Orange Bus which can be the devil incarnate sometimes if it's waiting at the bus stop termnius (due to noise of engine & airbrakes, quite why the driver doesn't turn off the engine if he has a 10m+ wait I don't know).

Beyond this you have windy racetrack road (short cut to avoid crossing motorway, roundabouts and lights) with fast traffic in both directions over hump back bridges and poor visibility at the 50mph+ speed this has to be driven at, before you cross fast road between villages to country lanes. No decent 'country' for about 5 miles till there is a circular bridleway but you have another fast road to cross and a further busy one to ride along. Sometimes you can ride on a short path through part of The Country Park - but only when there's no dogs (again a dog walkers paradise) which leads to a dead end (so you turn round and come back) unless you can go in another bit beyond when there are no cows - again a dead end.

If you venture in other direction you have the windy road racetrack. Admittedly it is a 40 limit ending in a width restriction one way or a 30 past a school the other - but the challenge to the driver is to drive as fast as possible (70+) without having to follow the road ie drive in straight line around blind bends with wheels over centre line.

If you go further afield then it's just housing estates and busy roads. There is a small amount of former gravel pit land one can sneak a canter round if no dogs (school hols mid morning or mid afternoon is best) - but you have to go under a railway bridge with a busy junction adjacent to it. Now officially, that's an area where riding is not permitted (but we've not been told off yet - ponies unshod), beyond that is more housing, busy road and then a major trunk road.
 
Dubsie, OMG I really feel for you - that is terrible. I wouldn't have a horse if I had to put up with that. But I did when I was in London.
Now I am in the Highlands the hacking is just fabulous and sometimes I think we all need reminding what terrible conditions some horse owners have to tolerate.
ORANGEHORSE At least you only have cows to deal with. - believe me its nothing compared to artics and motorway traffic.
 
It's actually OK if you have a dog proof/traffic proof pony - which No1 Little Grey Welshie we used to loan was - her field was on the windy racetrack road to the school by the railway and in a previous life was long reined and driven on the road lots, so is 100% traffic proof, and also is not frightened of dogs (has a good aim with her kick lol!)

We realised we were spolit with No1 LGW now we have the NF who is a bit green to these things (coming from a country life in the NF), but if you time it right (early Sunday morning is fab, the estate dog owners do like their lie in) then it's OK.

We keep looking at lovely properties to move to though!
 
Orangehorse, I sympathise with the cow thing. I keep Che on a small farm and the only paddock suitable to school in is currently the maternity wing for the sheep! Now, there is no issue riding in there with them, only a few sheep and paddock plenty big enough but whenever I put my cones out they all come over to investigate. Last night for instance whilst I was trying to perfect a 20m circle to the left, 4 lambs came over and were doing a very nifty half pass down the centre:) followed by their mums trying to round them up. Fortunately Che is immune to their antics, seen it all before but how am I ever gonna get to Grand Prix level, we'll be halting for the judge and he'll be looking around for the white fluffy markers:)
 
We moved from home counties to NE Scotland partly for this reason, Im a nervous nellie hacking and up here I can even hack out alone and enjoy it. You can ride just about anywhere. We live up our farm track so I hack out straight from home.

I gave up a VERY well paid job to come here, now im poor but dont care! Have 26 sheep, 9 chickens, 5 geese, 2 dogs, 3 stable cats and the 2 horses, all at home.

Where we were was good for how close to London it was, there were hacking routes, but it was encircled by busy roads which I found hard even tho my horse was good on the roads. Also theres a lot of fly tipping generally and so poor horsie would have to deal with that too.

As a result of more confidence we are doing our first endurance pleasure ride on Sunday with the (barefoot) orange haffie girlie.

Mind you, we did have knee deep snow for 3 months solid over the winter so there can be other things that stop you riding!
 
I know what you mean, I live in Devon, which everyone thinks is great hacking country, and it is, depending on where in Devon you are ....

Here its all farmland, and highly prized farmland at that, and to get to any open ground its almost an hour's hack away, so as soon as you get there its time to come back. We do have one bridle path which is right next to the dual carriageway!!! But better than nothing I guess.

I own a smallholding: 13 acres, and so do sympathise with the farmers. They dare not let anyone ride on their land in case someone has an accident and claims personal injury off them, so whereas years ago they might let riders go in their fields whilst in stubble, they daren't do it now. Unfortunately a few horse riders around here have been going in people's fields and cantering around without permission. My big field is admittedly rather tempting, but I don't expect to see tiny little hoofprints all around it where someone has obviously been in there and not asked me if its OK!!! I need that grazing land for sheep and it won't be any good if someone's churned it all up - anyway, they shouldn't be there. I don't know who the person is (probably a child by the size of the hoofprints), but am fuming about it!! Grrrrrr!
 
also bear in mind they can lose their single farm payment if they are found to be allowing horses to trample the species rich field margins they are being paid for cultivating, thats a lot of the reason.

also, altho I have been a stubble bandit in the past (only cos it belonged to local agric/equestrian college who Id had to do a ragwort report to DEFRA about!!!! :-o), do try to get permission as sometimes the cereals are undersown with grass or another crop which will get damaged even if its not that visible.

scotland is a lot better as altho theres hardly any common land, horseriders have rights of responsible access to most tracks, not just wild land and bridleways. makes a big difference esp when there are lots of forestry and estate tracks :-)
 
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