"Bolting"

i'd say a lot of people confuse bolting (sheer no stopping running blind terror on the horses part) with being run off with/taken off with..... in all the years of riding i've never been bolted with, i've been 'run away' with plenty of times, either due to brake failure/over excitement, changing my hands without realising, or general bad manners on the horse's part

FYI... running away in my mind is just going faster than i want, running through the hand/legs & not listening, & my horse will even occasionally do it in trot if he's got one on him!
 
redmone said:
Sorry! I was just thinking about it today!! They get bad press sometimes I think! And your bolting thread reminded me. Some people seem to relish having something dramatic to talk about, when all I want is good positive reports from my daughter!!

Ponies definately seem smarter to me!!! I love em to bits!!! The smaller and fluffier the better :D

However, seriously, must be completely new underwear moment when they do bolt with you - akin the brakes on my car failing!!! :eek:
Click to expand...

Def agree RE small fluff!!!

On your last comment - I've recently done my HGV so I can drive the folks 7.5 tonner - OMG I am so scared of the brakes failing because it does actually happen on lorries.. eak!! It happened to someone I know and she had to put the handbrake on (they are much different on a lorry to a car, it's either on or off), it spun around and the wheels on one side came off the road but luckily it came back down and didn't tip over!!! How scary!!
 
I'v been 'tanked off with' quite a few times. I've been bolted with twice in 40 years. Both times, I tried to turn the horse by putting both hands through one bit-ring, both times I failed. It was like trying to turn a train with the palm of your hand.

The feeling is quite unique and scarily so. There is a 'disconnect' between you - their 'flight or fight' response is too strong and normal communication via reins and seat ceases.

Not fun.
 
Starbucks said:
Def agree RE small fluff!!!

On your last comment - I've recently done my HGV so I can drive the folks 7.5 tonner - OMG I am so scared of the brakes failing because it does actually happen on lorries.. eak!! It happened to someone I know and she had to put the handbrake on (they are much different on a lorry to a car, it's either on or off), it spun around and the wheels on one side came off the road but luckily it came back down and didn't tip over!!! How scary!!
Click to expand...

My first car's brake were great - stopped on a penny - nearly put passengers through windscreen! 2nd car (only 6 mths after passing test!) - brakes like a squashy cushion! Rubbish!! Pooed myself for a few weeks then coughed up for better ones!!! Not a good feeling! Amazing your friend kept the HGV on all 4 wheels!!! Phew!!! :)

Not ridden for years, or been bolted with, so can't comment on that - but lack of brakes of any description is a definate new underwear moment for me! :D
 
True bolting is when the horse goes and runs blind with no self-preservation for itself or care of anything around it, sheer panic. So many people use this term loosely when most of the time the horse is simply 'taking off'. We have a driving pony which used to bolt, would easily go through hedges etc. He did bolt with me once, I've had many 'take off' but thats nothing compared to being sat on a true 'bolter'. The question you start to run through your mind is how do I bail out? and that becomes very difficult...
 
MrsHutt said:
I would say that 'bolting' is the horse running away out of the control of the rider. That's why it is so frightening - you have no control of the horse.
Click to expand...

SmartieBean09 said:
Ditto this.

15 years after being bolted with, I still lose my bottle in an open field!
Click to expand...

Same here.Few years ago,my horse zoomed off with me in a panic (in the field),he was on the lunge at the time, he got away from my friend and all of a sudden he just took off with me, eventually I lost my balance (I only manahed to get one foot in stirrup) and I came off and managed to land on the grass and not the branches.My friend had a right job to catch him. Sent him off to be proffessionally broken in q week later and to this day Im still nervous,although hes very quiet now. Bolting is VERY scary.
 
I think bolting classes as when your horse has totally lost the plot/sense of self preservation and it is blind panic. I've been bolted with 3 times in my life, that I class as bolting and not just being run away with because they are times I've actually feared for my own life, and also my horses.

First one, I was having a ride and lead in hand off our 16.2hh Dutch WB, she spooked and p*ssed off 5 miles down the lane and we ended up in the middle of a *ploughed* 10 acre field. Can I mention my hat had fallen off, hanging onto a mane, bareback and was 7 years old??!

Second time, was out on a quiet walk down the road, mum following on foot, car came round the corner ahead, WAY too fast, luckily crashed into the tree next too us, my poor little pony took an exception and galloped 4 miles home in the middle of the road, think I was about 11.

Third time, went for a proper 'pack up the ponies in the lorry and go on a real hack' - bad idea. PS/sisters horse suddenly went bat***** and mine galloped (the fastest he EVER went) into one of those never ending fields in the middle of nowhere, but it was a field that had cattle grids so I was praying and praying he didn't go over one of those. I was 14.

xoxo
 
Ive been bolted with once and hit scared me, in fact im sure u were there ? beverley racecourse at camp. We all went on a group ride 5 groupes and thomas Wendy E grey who i took for the week bolted in the corn field then stopped him and all he did was flying bucks kicked stacy Bennett on the leg just missed oliver T's horse and i ended up swapping horse with DC daughter.

I class bolting when nothing gets in the way of the horse and its just a blind panic.
 
Wikipedia says there are two types of bolting (and only one word for it!), bolting in blind panic and bolting as a disobedience to the rider/handler's aids to stop. There is a distinction, but they are both forms of bolting, and I'm inclined to agree.
 
dingle12 said:
Ive been bolted with once and hit scared me, in fact im sure u were there ? beverley racecourse at camp. We all went on a group ride 5 groupes and thomas Wendy E grey who i took for the week bolted in the corn field then stopped him and all he did was flying bucks kicked stacy Bennett on the leg just missed oliver T's horse and i ended up swapping horse with DC daughter.

I class bolting when nothing gets in the way of the horse and its just a blind panic.
Click to expand...

I can't remember.. bad memory though! All I can remember from PC camp is being told of lots and playing cowboys and indians!
 
Starbucks said:
Sorry Nikki but LOL at the first one!!! Think you must have someone to blame for that one!!

Was wondering if you were PS's sister! :)
Click to expand...

:) that be me!

Haha!! Yeah it's funny now....but at the time it was horrible, I got hit in the face by a low branch too *face palm*...so snot, tears and blood everywhere.... It was literally meant to be a stable->field and PS giving me a lead on her horse...we took an alternate route. A really long alternate route.

PS made me get straight back on it afterwards! Ahhh well, when life gives you lemons and what not! xoxo
 
Flame_ said:
Wikipedia says there are two types of bolting (and only one word for it!), bolting in blind panic and bolting as a disobedience to the rider/handler's aids to stop. There is a distinction, but they are both forms of bolting, and I'm inclined to agree.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, all that means is that one person who classes "taking off" as "bolting" has updated wikipedia. I could log on right now and remove the second definition! :p

ETS: I've just looked it up on wikipedia ... it recommends turning in a circle as a cure! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolting_(horse)
 
Last edited:
Well I had a 13.2hh pony who jumped 4 foot hedge (probably 6ft if you add the fact she was standing in the ditch prior to jumping the hedge) She jumped through fear (three lorries passing by) and there was no stopping her. She didnt go much further once she was the other side....neither did I as i was on the floor lol!

So was that bolting?

I didnt think so tbh but it was a bit stupid!:D
 
nikkimariet said:
:) that be me!

Haha!! Yeah it's funny now....but at the time it was horrible, I got hit in the face by a low branch too *face palm*...so snot, tears and blood everywhere.... It was literally meant to be a stable->field and PS giving me a lead on her horse...we took an alternate route. A really long alternate route.

PS made me get straight back on it afterwards! Ahhh well, when life gives you lemons and what not! xoxo
Click to expand...

Bless, I can just imagine shocked people watching this big, matchy matchy dressage horse galloping down the road with small child on board, in my head small child is screaming and waving her arms around... I'm sure not the case at all! Just shows though you've got to be careful, could've been a pretty bad ending! If it was me I'd totally bring that up forever with arguments with big sis.. "You nearly bloody killed me when..." :P
 
Well i have never been bolted with run away with yes but not bolted with my dad has poin to point horses and while he has had some scary run away ones which i wouldnt have relished riding he has had two bolters.

One would be fine for months then would just take off for no reason very scary not even when in fast company with other horses he ran away with my dad once for seeral miles away from home on his own my dad said he had his head pulled so far round it was touching his knee nearly made no difference.

Its not funny but a man was walking two hairy pooches on those extendable leaders and my dad was trying to shout to get dogs out of way horse ran straight over leaders but my dad says he had visions of dogs being dragged well you get the picture and him being inlocal newspapaer as the man who trampled fluffy dogs to death. The horse never got out of it they kept him as he was too dangerous to pass on but funnily a lovely horse but on the rare ocasion he snappped.

The other horse he had who bolted was a lovely boy a quite sucessful flat racer in his time but dangerous when he got up to speed he was never the best jumper but when in bolting mode when hunting or out did not attempt to lift his legs and just smashed through obsticale and over usually upside down in to bogs etc smashed my dad a few times broken bones knocked out blah blah.

A true bolter will not even bother to jump anything in thier way will just run blind on chosen course with no worry for themselves or anyone on board, this particular horse also lived out his days with us and was inproved by the time he was 27 i think only beacuse he was slower.;)
 
Funny you said about hunting, I was thinking about said horse in my OP, I took him hunting and he was INSANE!! Really had zero control what so ever and despite being a good, careful jumper normally he just set off when we were supposed to be queueing for a wall, completely crashed threw it and galloped strait to hounds! He completely lost the plot!! I've hunted all my life and used to babies etc. but this was something else.. he was well scary! Managed to get back to the lorry but he pulled away from me and ended up galloping up and down the road... EAAAK!!!

I didn't buy him as a hunter so all good, but after I'd sold him the woman I bought him from and her mate who was our ex-huntsman have both said to me - "Oh you couldn't hunt that horse though".. well thanks for telling me!!!! :P
 
Bolting to me is as much distance as anything. A swift scuttle down the road for 20 yards because something has frightened neddy is not bolting. A flat out red mist gallop on same road for half a mile is!

My father had a confirmed bolter when I was a teenager. The maddening thing was that he never ever did it with him. But he ran away with everyone else, incuding our girl grooms. The longest distance he covered with me was two miles, on a disused railway track. I remember thundering over a viaduct, spanning a road 20 feet below. The viaduct only had railings on one side. Scary....
 
QR

People use the word all the time and it p|sses me off. I bought a £4k Stow Fair horse (3 homes in 3 months) for peanuts. Bag of nerves, shat himself and took off down and over 3 main roads, through a housing estate (narrowly missing 2 girls quietly crossing the road minding their own business lol), and off the side of the common which is basically a cliff (the freak stayed on his feet and jumped his way down, over trees too. Fab hunter lol! ;)).

We survived and very quickly he calmed, and just fecked off for fun for the next 6 years cos I couldn't ride one side of him and he knew it. There's a big difference!

You know and never forget how it feels, when you're sitting on something that is running in true fear of its life.
 
I had the misfortune of a true bolt 2 summers ago.

hes a naturally spooky horse, but this was different, he span and just ran blind straight into the level crossing barriers (train was coming). was probably 200 yards if that (distance is irrelevant in a bolt), only reason he stopped is because his legs were upside down under the mangled barrier.

nothing would have stopped him- there could have been a train there, parked cars anything and he wouldnt take a blind bit of notice, not jumped, nor turned or stopped.

being taken off with is horrid but atleast they still have self preservation, but bolting truly makes you think you both might die.
 
It is truly an overrused word on here. "My horse bolted in the sandschool" being one example. No dear, he just took off, huge difference.
Bolting is a huge instinctive fear response: the horse will go over/under/through ANYTHING in it's path to escape the perceived threat.
 
If you've ever been bolted with you'll never confuse it with tanking off again, I used to have a pony that did both.
He ran into the side of an indoor school once (fortunately he hadn't had time to get up to full speed yet or he could have killed himself & his rider but he did have a huge bump on his forehead), he also went straight through the middle of an elderberry bush & a wooden 5 bar gate.
His bolts would often start as just tanking off, then the something would flip in his head, he'd lock his neck muscles & he'd be off - very, very scarey. If I could circle him before his head went it was fine.
 
I also have been bolted with once. I was trying out a pony in gale force winds and driving rain on top of a hill in Scotland, I had been on him about 30 seconds when the wind and the rain and the new rider got too much for him and he started careering down the muddy rough hill. I was actually perfectly calm, I tried stopping him, nothing, then I tried turning, nothing, then I decided as we were coming up to a wall with barbed wire on it I would gracefully dismount. I slid in the mud for about 5 meters he was going thar fast! I don't know what he did directly after that as I was lying on my back going uuuuugh and trying to get my wind back! The end of the story is that someone caught him, we went for a nice hack and I bought him. Given the conditions I decided that if he could manage a nice hack after that bolt he was an ok sort :).
 
Theocat said:
Agree with the others - "bolting" is sheer blind panic and nothing and nobody can influence a horse in that state.

99.9% of the time when people say "bolt" they mean "taking off". Taking off can still be horribly scary, but I wish people wouldn't confuse the two - annoys the bejesus out of me when it's clear it isn't a bolt, but more likely a lack of rider ability / schooling. Nothing wrong with that either, and most people have been in one position or another, but don't call it a "bolt"!
Click to expand...

Well put :)
 
MrsHutt said:
I would say that 'bolting' is the horse running away out of the control of the rider. That's why it is so frightening - you have no control of the horse.
Click to expand...

Ditto, but the horse is also not paying any attention to you, as if they're not even aware that you're there.

'Bolting' is definately used far too much these days- there isn't all that many bolters about!!!

I've been bolted with once, and on that occasion the horse unfortunately crashed very badly, ending her ridden career and giving her severe damage for the rest of her life.

We still have her, but she's just a companion for the youngsters now- older horses usually try to kill her so shes separate

So when someone uses the phrase to describe nothing more than a fast canter or gallop I'm afraid I have no time for it!!!
 
To me, true bolting is a fear/pain response that triggers blind panic. Horse will run for a while, then when far enough away from the stimulus, stop. If the stimulus is pain from tack/muscle/nerves, they may well run until exhausted. Being run off with, however unstoppable the horse seems to be, isn't the same thing. Still scary though!

Examples:
1) Traffic-shy pony with unimaginably scary lorry and inadequate support from 'shield' horse. She shot off at speed down the road to home and I honestly thought I'd be cantering all the way there, before the lorry stopped trying to overtake us and I managed to get her into a driveway. Was I scared? No. I knew what the problem was, knew he had to get the point and pull back eventually, and that we'd then be able to find a safe haven and she'd be ok. Haven't hacked out with those riders to shield her again though!
2) Go down a bridleway where there are even increasing numbers of large stinging nettles, eventually decided this is ridiculous and go to turn around. Horse gets stung as she's turning, and is off. I lost a stirrup as she spun and went, and just ducked and held on 'till we were far enough away she calmed down. Don't blame her - I bet it hurt!

Being run off with:
1) Open moor - friend's horse got over-excited and went, mine followed. No brakes at all, but it was clear we were following to catch up and there was no fear/pain involved.
2) Over-excited, under-exercised TB after snow - tore off in field, did about 8 bucks in a row then managed to stop her. Did this a few times before feeling better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top