At what age did you start hacking out alone?

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Moggy in Manolos

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As the title? The nervous mum post got me thinking :D

I think a poll would be too endless for this one! So I will leave it out in the open

I started hacking out alone age 11yrs old, how my poor mum coped I never know, when I think back now I can definitely see her there stressing at the front door as I hacked off into the countryside! Poor thing, she did well I think, not sure I could do it!

So how old were you when you first started hacking alone?
 
Ten. Had my first riding lesson for my tenth Birthday (from Mum, little did she know what an addiction it would become lol). Started riding the riding school ponies to and from the fields almost immediately :cool::eek::D:D
 
as soon as i passed my riding and road safety (didnt have a horse before it though) think i was just 12.
 
about 14 - 2 years after I had started with my part loan pony :)
my mum warned me not to go off the yard alone when I first took him on!! I'd never ridden a pony on the road before :)
K x
 
About 8, admittedly there were a few of us. I'd hop on, ride along, collect a friend, then another, then another.

Then we'd gallop about the place on our shetlands, welshies and highlands, then some hours later we'd troop off home. If someone fell off they got back on, broken or not, between us we were known, and knew everyone, for miles around.

This was almost 40 years ago mind, much safer then, less traffic, more community spirit. If we'd done something wrong, ridden over crops, been where we shouldn't, fallen off etc, someone would have seen us and our parents would know before we got home or someone would come out and get us.

My Mother says that she never worried, the 'Mummy Grapevine' always knew where we were, and who with - the latter was jolly irritating when we turned about 14 and didn't want to be tracked all the time!;)
 
So it seems we were a young bunch when we started gallivanting off on our own! Our poor mums. I lived in the middle of no where in Wales where there was endless countryside, thankfully I was a great little rider back then, had a very sticky bottom!! :D
 
I was 8 when I went on my first solo hack, dressed from head to hoof in hi-viz lol. Before then my Mum used to do ride and lead with me and I loved it. She first did that when I was about 4 so I was out and about way before I went solo. :) Had she not have done that with me I doubt I would have been allowed at until I was a lot older lol! Think she felt more reassured when I was 12 and she got me to do my Ride and Road Safety lol.
 
Alone alone? I couldn't tell you. Hacked out with cousins (younger) from about 8 or so. But we were always off all day on our own, even on foot, can't remember parents being overly bothered but maybe they were. :o
 
10......and I agree with the thoughts of many others 'Can't believe it now!'.
It is a real shame tho' because I used to have such fun :). My daughter is now 11 and to my mind is still a few years off going out alone.She is a far better ride than I was at her age but having a mother in the equine industry does her no favours in this department as I am all too aware of what can occur - poor girl :(.
 
Started riding in the 1960's when most of the riding schools were unlicenced so 8 with my friend, we would hire two ponies for an hour and off we would go, when we got to the age of 12 we were allowed to ride the stallion so we did on alternate weekends when we took out hacks.
 
Fifteen or sixteen, but I didn't have a pony and didn't share one till I was 14. Before that it was all riding schools.

I remember hacking this pony with my Dad nearby in the car (he'd walked the dog at the bridlepath bit of the ride). I was cantering along a stubble field by the road when suddenly the pony, who had no mouth, leapt out through the hedge and bolted off down the road. He only went a hundred yards or so, and thankfully no traffic apart from my (nonhorsey) dad, who pulled the car over and said, very solemnly, "I don't think it's a good idea to gallop on the road."

:rolleyes: Bless. Like I did it on purpose!
 
9 - when i got my first pony, but that was only on very small lanes where it would be unusual to see more than 3/4 cars out. Then we moved yards when i got my chap aged 11, and i was riding him out on my own on bigger lanes/feilds etc... (p.s i think my mums unusually relaxed about things like that... I was 11, riding out alone on a 16.2 4yo who had one rather large buck when he wanted to!!) :p
 
13, when I got my first horse. I didn't feel young at the time but thinking back now it does seem it. I used to go along some pretty busy roads too!
 
9, but that was in fields set aside for riding on the yard my loan pony was on. I hacked my warmblood alone from age 12 or so, I'm not quite sure. Initially mostly backwards so I'm not sure that counts ;)
 
I was 15 (when I got my first loan pony) but this is quite recently

But tbh the roads are fairly busy (buses etc) and involves going over a motorway bridge :eek:
 
Gosh! Think I was probably about 9 or 10 on a little horror of an Exmoor pony called Brandy. But it was over my uncle's farm so not on the road.

Then when I was 14? (think) I got my second pony and we hacked out everywhere on our own; one of the places we would regularly hack to pony club rallies was where a poor girl disappeared in 1978.

To begin with there were a few odd occasions when the pony came home minus its rider, and my poor (non horsey!) mother must have had kittens!!! But often we'd all go off on our ponies together and take a picnic and do wild things like race through streams and over the common, and there was a strict "don't tell the parents" policy, so if you fell off, or someone else did, it was a case of not 'fessing up or whining about it!

As others have said, I can't believe we did it now. But its refreshing to see the kiddies down the road (daughters of my compatriots in pony club - golly makes you feel old!) going off like we did on their ponies, only there's not the places to ride anymore where we went, the countryside is gradually getting smaller and smaller and they have to ride on the roads far more than we did, with much more & much faster traffic.
 
I was 12 when I got my first pony, he was kept in a field in the middle of nowhere, there was another girl the same age as me who also had a pony and her little sister who had a pony. Our parents would drop us off in the morning and leave us there all day and pick us up before it got dark!!
We would hack out for hours and jump massive jumps with no adult supervision, I shudder when I think about it now, but we were perfectly alright, nothing awful ever happened and we actually had loads of fun!

Even if we did fall off then we never told our parents lol!
 
I would say alot of us started age 10 then by the looks of things :D
I started teaching myself to ride on two loan ponies when I was 9, following winter we started building up our own collection and i was 10/11yrs old when i started hacking out alone. Like alot of you it is quite scary how young I was in way, but I did not have any terrible incidents out alone, just a few close shaves! :D Like I said, I seemed to have a very sticky bum! Great fun though, and I used to do it bareback too! :eek:
 
I started hacking out when I was 11 but that was in company, the first time all alone was when I was 20!

This was because I found a horse in need of excersise and therefore got to hack alone.

:)
 
I think I must have been 13 on a pony I shared with my riding instructor. I used to do all sorts, cantering through open fields, riding around the villages and along very busy national speed limit roads on a skitty little mare! Never used to wear any hi viz either....very stupid looking back!
 
got my pony just before i was 15 started hacking out on my own then fell off on the road in a huge pile of nettles and was really shaken up as my pony ran away i as so scared as tractors come by often luckily my mum came to the rescue
so for about 3 months i was riding and my mm was wlaking or hackin out with a friend or instuctor
then gained confidence and have now been hacking out alone since about april :)
 
I was 10 when I started hacking on my own, on the roads and bridleways.

My daughter was 14 before she started hacking on her own. I didn't trust the vastly increased traffic and her pony before then but at 14 she was riding my very sensible horse and it was fine with it. I should say that where we live now there is no offroad hacking to speak of and we have two railway crossings, three heavy lorry yards, a coach yard and lots of farm yards with heavy traffic in the village. You really do need a saint to hack out round here and live.
 
Just like Enfys and Myjodsr2tie. Lived in the back of beyond. Hacking alone or with one of two great friends. Best friend lived 2 miles away as the crow flew, but other side of the local, fast flowing river. My parents, who overprotected me in every other way, were horsy, and their only concessioin to my wellbeing was that they did ring the farmer whose land bordered the river at the crossing point before I set out. If he said it was OK, I went.

We rode bareback more than with saddles, picnicked in the woods and on the moors, yearned to be circus riders (we could all stand on our ponies' backs while cantering in a straight line and vault on from behind - no schools in those days) and pull another rider onto our pony - known as Knights and Ladies. My brother's beef cattle didn't put on the weight they should have because we were always herdng them. Absolutely no telling the parents what went on, but oh, what fun!

I don't think kids today have anything like the freedom with their ponies/horses. They can ride beautifully in an arena, but just don't have the option of riding how it was meant to be, with the little element of danger and excitment and meeting and coping with surprises. Took a local child out for a hack with me the other day. We rode up an overgrown track where you had to bend down to avoid the branches etc. She was so excited about "the adventure". But with fast roads and lunatics behind the wheel, can you take the risk and let them hack out along.
 
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