a bit annoyed - wwyd in this situation?

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blood_magik

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Please bear with me - it's a little long.

a large group (almost 20 horses plus a few people on foot) go to the beach.
the majority of horses (16) go on ahead and onto the beach - two riders waitin the car park for the last rider so their horse isn't left by himself.

Anyways, a bit further down the beach, the little group of three pass the large group who are trying to get their horses into the sea. the small group passes in walk.

once the small group are a good bit ahead, rider one and rider two decide to have a bit of a trot while rider three walks behind (still ahead of the large group). Horse three is quite happy to walk a small distance behind the two trotting horses. it's his first time at the beach so he is understandably a bit look-y but is behaving himself.

The large group, now in the water, comes cantering past from behind with no warning. Horse number three freaks at being left behind and rears several times (one big rear and several smaller ones) nearly unseating the rider.

this results in the small group turning around and heading back to the lorry park early rather than risking horse number three having a meltdown and chucking his rider off.

First of all, was turning back the right thing to do in that situation?

Secondly, would you be annoyed?
I was always taught to pass other horses at walk and to stop if a horse or pony started to kick off. I thought the large group was rather inconsiderate.

Thoughts?
 
why did rider no 3 not canter to keep up? I would have stopped were I in the large group but on the other hand would have expected rider3 to either keep up or go the other way/head back to the box. probably should go with smaller numbers with baby horses. were large group aware of the issue?
 
the 'leaders' of the big group were aware this was the horse's first time at the beach - there were a few who hadn't been before.

Rider did try to turn the horse back but the horse starting spinning as well as rearing.
It felt like the safest thing to do was wait for riders one and two to come back rather than try to catch up with the others.

Should add that a few stragglers saw the horse and rider getting upset and still cantered past them.

And yes, smaller groups would have been a good idea. I won't be going in such a large group again after today.
 
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I think the situation was asking for trouble. So many horses in such an exciting environment is a recipe for disaster.
 
well to be honest, I didn't expect them to go in one big group - I was told that we would be going of in small groups but obviously that didn't happen.
Also, we can't take our three in our lorry because we would be overweight so we took advantage of the lift that was offered in the yard lorry.

Im just a bit annoyed that no-one seemed to think before going charging past - I've always been taught to ask if it's ok to pass if you want to pass faster than at walk.
Anyways, im obviously being a bit unreasonable.
Lesson learnt - don't go to the beach unless its with people you know and in small groups.
 
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Difficult situation
- in any group of horses that large I tend to treat it like hunting; i.e. I assume horses might take off, canter, gallop, flybuck past at speed. I assume people might not necessarily be aware of every other rider and horse and that if I have specific needs, then I need to make sure I am hanging out with other riders with the same needs. 20 horses is a very big group indeed and many horses would go barmy from the sheer excitement.
 
I'm thinking most beaches are quite massive so you could have one the other way with your group at any point, rather than ending it early. Sorry it didn't turn out to be a good experience.
 
The horse did settle down and we made sure to end on a good note with him so it wasn't necessarily a bad experience - it just didn't go as well as we'd hoped.
On the plus side, he did really well for his first time - he had a paddle and trotted in the water as well so it wasn't a complete disaster.

He'll be going back but with just one other horse for the time being.
 
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I probably would have gone in such large group for first time but as you say you didn't expect it to be so big.I would still see it as bad manners to go galloping by another horse esp if you could see rider was having a bit of bother with it.
 
I would either have turned and faced them when I heard them coming, or trotted on and over to the side. It is generally good manners on a fun ride to ask before passing other riders, so am a bit surprised they didn't. Had the horse been on fun rides so used to going out in a group?
 
That many horses and a 'first timer' was a recipe for disaster.

Seems rather unfair on him/her to expect it cope with such an exciting time. Personally, I'd have gone with a trusted friend or 2 who would take things at the pace I was happy to go at.

Would I be annoyed? Yes, with myself for being a little short sighted in the the 'what if' department!
 
You were a bit optimistic taking him on such a big ride in the first place.
They were a bit rude cantering past, and weren't very nice not to pull up when you struggled.
I wouldn't have rushed back to the box, I would have calmly carried on, in a different direction if need be.
 
he's been out in groups and has done fast work in groups too. He's usually very well behaved at new places, goes first or last when out so had no reason to think he'd react the way he did. But that's horses for you.

anyways, hindsight and all that.. he's still relatively new to me (had him just over a year but was unable to ride for 6 months) and today was obviously a bit much for him but now we know and we can make sure it doesn't happen again.
thanks for the replies everyone.
appreciate it :)
 
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tbh at the beach it tends to be a free for all, everybody doesn't stop and ask before trotting etc. If horse 3 couldn't trot with horse 1 and 2 then it shouldn't really have been on the beach tbh in a big group and spoil everyones fun. That said I wouldn't canter past someone in trouble personally.
 
nope, today.

to be fair, we split off into the smaller group because we didn't want to stop people in the big group from having a canter. we had all agreed that we wanted to take it easy.

we've never had issues with people charging past on that particular beach. everyone we've met has been lovely and willing to slow down until we've passed each other. I dunno, maybe we'vebeen spoiled and now we automatically expect it to happen.

either way, lesson learnt. ill wait until I've got my new lorry before we go again.
 
Our horses understand that the beach = gallop. They then walk for a bit to catch their breath and gallop again.

In your shoes I'd have pushed him on, held on tight and got him stretching his legs like you can on a beach. I've not found a horse yet who can rear while galloping.
 
How annoyed I'd be would depend on how close they passed and whether such things had been discussed beforehand. If the entire group had been advised to give your horse a wide berth when passing and to ask permission before passing above a walk then yes I'd be annoyed whereas if you hadn't asked to be given special consideration and horse is generally fine with being passed they simply may not have forseen an issue. If they passed very close to me then I'd be very peed off as that would wind most horses up whereas if they gave reasonable distance then I would be less so. I can see both sides as with previous pony I would probably have been one of the charging about brigade (although would NOT have blindly galloped past someone who was clearly struggling, that's just bad manners!) whereas current pony would probably react in a similar manner to horse 3 as he gets far too wound up by even a single horse passing at close quarters in anything more than a walk
 
If I see ANYONE struggling I slow to a walk (assuming I'm not struggling too), its bad manners to do anything else in my opinion.
No matter what the size of group, if they knew the horse was inexperienced they should never have cantered up behind.
Could they not have gone the opposite way along the beach if they wanted to canter/gallop when they saw your small group moving relatively slowly?
Okay so it wasn't ideal to go in such a big group, but I think the big group were in the wrong here personally.
 
I'd have been keeping the horse with horses 1 & 2 if it was it's first time on the beach, and not getting separated.
 
blood_magik said:
The large group, now in the water, comes cantering past from behind with no warning. Horse number three freaks at being left behind and rears several times (one big rear and several smaller ones) nearly unseating the rider.
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I'm unclear about how you had no warning that 16 horses were cantering through the sea? I've ridden in the sea and on the beach, more recently we canter through rivers and lakes mind you, but the noise of that many horses splashing as they are cantering along through the water surely couldn't have been lost on you?

It sounds like you aren't that confident a rider and maybe it was a bad move to go in the first place, with or without so many other riders. I'd have gone with the flow tbh. If the large group came cantering along I'd have urged my horse into canter and kept up with them.
 
blood_magik said:
well to be honest, I didn't expect them to go in one big group - I was told that we would be going of in small groups but obviously that didn't happen....................

Anyways, im obviously being a bit unreasonable.
Lesson learnt - don't go to the beach unless its with people you know and in small groups.
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I don't actually think you are being unreasonable but my experience tells me that you were being unrealisitic. I refuse to go on any kind of social ride where I don't know every single rider and can be sure that they will ride responsibly. Our RC does some really good social rides but unfortunately, even though there is a procedure laid down, with things like small groups etc, unless the ride leader is a very strong personality and used to telling others what to do and expecting them to comply, there will always be numpties who think that it is fine to just do their own thing. We've had idiots riding 3 abreast down narrow roads, trotting to see if "we can break the speed limit" (can you believe?), crossing at junctions before the whole group of 6 has caught up and countless other things, which I refuse to be part of.
 
It does sound as if they were very inconsiderate but in your shoes I would have pushed my horse into trot to stay with the other two. And certainly not tried to hold him back if other horses came past.

I think any horse would rear in a situation where others are trotting or cantering ahead and the rider is trying t hold the horse back so it is getting left behind. In fact I know mine would.
 
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