Do you hack on roads...

[Boughtabay]

Expecting car drivers to know how to drive around horses, and labeling them stupid, is really not helpful. The average person knows absolutely nothing whatsoever about horses - how could they? Years ago, when I was a child and haring around the lanes on various semi-feral ponies, pretty much everyone had some experience around horses, even city dwellers. Those days are gone, and with it my desire to ride amongst cars and lorries.

It doesn’t just apply to horses either, people have no idea how to act around most animals. We have to cross sheep over a main road and have the right to briefly stop traffic to do so. the MOMENT we start moving closer towards the gate and away from the centre of the road drivers will accelerate onwards absolutely no concept that any of the animals might turn back for whatever reason or scoot out between one of us . We used to drive cattle along a road (with many helpers) and more than once someone’s ignored us & driven straight through the herd - we box them now in many loads even though it’s a relatively short distance that didn’t take much time to walk.

ETA I don’t expect people to understand the unpredictability of animals in any situation based on these interactions

 

[criso]

My sister and I came across a dirt bike parked in the middle of a bridle way. Got a bit closer to find a couple of people, literally caught with their pants down having a jolly old time together on the grass/scrub near the bike. Cue them scrambling around trying to reinstate their clothing. I would have quite liked to have proceeded quickly past and pretending I hadn’t seen anything but BBP decided quite rightly that two monsters wrestling bare butt in the bushes was terrifying and it took quite a time and a lot of dragon snorting on his behalf to get him past. By which time they were reclothed and pretending the bike had broken down.
My sister then said quite loudly ‘you know you aren’t really supposed to take a dirt bike on a bridle way’ which in the circumstances I found hilarious and laughed my head off most of the way home.

In answer to the question though, I’m lucky to have an excellent network of bridleways but they are linked by minor roads so I do ride on the roads a bit.

One time when I came across a couple in a car desperately trying to zip up as I went past I mentioned I'd be coming back that way in about 10 minutes in case they started up again.

 

[Fransurrey]

Round here, off road is more likely to result in a incident than on it. We're in the Surrey Hills, which is a playground for tw*ts with money to buy the latest e-bike, dogs with no recall and trials bikes to hammer up and down the byways. I do have a hat cam, but it's so rubbish for downloading video, I don't use it, although I should! Just looked at the link shared by Peter and they're so expensive, but I feel I do need to upgrade.

 

[Fransurrey]

Don’t they just! I ride and lead and every ride there’s some idiot trying to squeeze past. One day I’m going to move my right leg out a bit and oops

I've been hit 3 times in the past year (reported each time) by people squeezing past. The last one had the passenger window down and I'm not sure if the whack of my whip on the windscreen or my abuse made them jump more...

ETA: they hit the whip - I didn't swing it and whack them!

 

[Birker2020]

I don't anymore simply because I don't have a horse to ride but if I did I would probably hack out twice a week in Summer, once in the winter.
Schooling every day is no good for horses legs.

We have an A road we need to cross to get anywhere although it is in a 30mph. But I'd often ride along the 30mph and continue onto the quarter of a mile 50mph stretch, but Bailey was particuarly good with heavy traffic and most people slowed down anyway. I have to say in all the years I have reguarly hacked out (22 years) I have never encountered an accident, had a couple of near misses but that has been it.

I used to go to a place about 3 miles from our yard and park up at the pub on the hardstanding in exchange for a couple of quid towards the life boat charity tin. I used to hack out for an hour or two there, it was very peaceful and quiet hacking and most enjoyable.

 

[Waxwing]

My riding instructor has advised that we need start hacking our new horse out more. We have been walking on the tracks around the yard for ten minutes or so but so far i haven't felt comfortable going further afield. I am aware that more variety of work is needed on a long term basis but I am not feeling particularly confident about the idea at present.

 

[First Frost]

We have no off road hacking available directly from our yard. Despite competing elementary, working medium, my horse has a low tolerance for school work, so he only goes in the school twice a week and one of them is often jumping - fortunately he learns quickly and retains stuff easily!
I hack out on the roads at least 3 times a week, although not A roads. I also box up for off road hacking about 5 miles away.
Unfortunately in our area all the livery yards are in an area without hacking and all the hacking is in an area with no livery yards!!!!

 

[toppedoff]

Im going off my current yard here but no, I wouldn't even take the horses off of the land. Luckily it's on a 300 acre farm but the only facility is the gallops but aim for an indoor arena.

It's literally a moat of main roads on all sides of the yard, you'd have to be really stupid to put a horse on the roads here and no one expect a horse to there either on these roads/the yard doesn't look like a yard, it's hidden within a working farm

While there is local woods, the roads make is simply impossible impossible

And I love hacking out, its all I've ever done. I've never schooled or even rode in arena unless we talk 10 years ago. People also like to race their cars here also, we get it all the time especially my bit!

 

[Keith_Beef]

We don't hack along roads for anything more than a couple of hundred metres, at most, usually. We have to cross a few roads that cut through the forest, but these are usually on very straight stretches and there are signs to alert drivers that horses crossing have right of way. Drivers are almost always courteous and stop for us.

On Equirando last year we ended up having to do a couple of km on the French equivalent of an A road when we found that our planned path was too overgrown and was unpassable. It went quite well, though.

 

[southerncomfort]

...

 

[Cloball]

Pony is kept in a very horsey village where the YO is well known locally so for the most part the locals and tractors are fab. The lanes are mostly to narrow to pass at all so cars have to wait. Pony is fab with packs of cyclists although she did try and chase one and for the most part they are pretty good as well. You can definitely tell when it's tourist season though SUVs with roof boxes making weird decisions.

I don't think it's as simple to say people aren't used to horses the highway code is very explicit if people choose to be ignorant of it or ignore it then they are at fault. I hate cycling on the roads these days so it's not just people not understanding horses. Even driving stresses me out, someone blared their horn at me today for having the audacity to wait for the oncoming traffic which had right of way rather than barreling on through.

 

[Sir barnaby]

Don’t have any choice as no bridleways near us. My, horse is brilliant with all traffic but it’s still worries me and I get a bit anxious also no one to ride with so mostly on my own. I chose quiet days after the school run when roads a bit quieter, even Sundays the roads are busy. Years ago I could ride along main roads and never see a car. Now the traffic is even busier on Saturdays and sundays. I’m glad I don’t have to take young horses on roads now.

 

[Caol Ila]

When I first moved to the UK, my horse was at a yard right on the A68 in Co. Durham. The only way to access trails was to ride down the A68 for a mile or so. We did not do much hacking that year. The horse was great in traffic, but nope. I think I did it once or twice and was bricking it at the lorries and buses and other vehicles thundering past at 60mph.

 

[PoniesRock]

I ride on the roads all the time. We’re blessed with mostly B roads and do have some decent bridleways. But I’m all fairness it’s not the traffic we have an issue with it’s cyclist. They are honestly the bane of my life…. One of mine is outright terrified of cyclists now, around us they seem to travel in ‘packs’…..

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

I've given up horses but spent my last few years of horse ownership mostly hacking.

We mainly went down the country lanes, sometimes just roadwork sometimes to get to the fields which were about 20 minutes to half an hour away depending if I did any trotting. There was another direction you could go but I very very rarely went that way as the road was faster and he could be a spooky t*t, especially if he saw the fishermen in one of the Fields which had a lake in so I very very rarely risked it. It got rather boring having only limited options, probably one of the reasons I lost interest

I definitely feel it needs to be a 2 way thing, I'd always trot to a passing point if I saw cars coming and would always say thank you to cars and always had my hi Viz on. So many people I see who don't wear hi Viz, don't say thank you, don't show any urgency to move to a safe passing place, or even better ones who are all 3!!

 

[Sossigpoker]

About 20 years ago I was hacking on a bridleway on my own. There was this man in a distance who started walking towards me. Something felt off, not sure what.
He approached me and asked for directions and then I realised he was wearing loafers - not what you'd wear for a walk on tracks and fields.
Next thing I know he grabbed my horse's rein and my thigh and is trying to pull me out of the saddle ! I tried to kick him but didn't get much force behind it as my foot was in the stirrup.
Thankfully my 16.2 IDx shied and this unbalanced the man for a second , long enough for me to get my whip arm up and hit him a couple of times (think I got him in the face , and it was a schooling whip too!). This allowed us to get away.
I have no idea if he was after me or my horse , I did report it to the police but they didn't really want to know.

 

[Sossigpoker]

Expecting car drivers to know how to drive around horses, and labeling them stupid, is really not helpful. The average person knows absolutely nothing whatsoever about horses - how could they? Years ago, when I was a child and haring around the lanes on various semi-feral ponies, pretty much everyone had some experience around horses, even city dwellers. Those days are gone, and with it my desire to ride amongst cars and lorries.

Well it would be nice if they drove in accordance with the Highway Code. I know most don't but how sad that we can't expect people to know how to drive within the law

 

[spottypony90]

I’ve chosen ‘I hack on all roads including A roads’. But this is because the main entrance to our house is on an A road and I only ever ride on there on a Sunday just to get to some different routes (and even then I check the bus route timetable first!) on the week I hack out across our fields and into the village and then I am a very careful about what roads I do and don’t ride on - again some of these are reserved for Sunday riding only. I mostly use the lanes to get to the bridleways or to connect one bridleway to another.

 

[spottypony90]

About 20 years ago I was hacking on a bridleway on my own. There was this man in a distance who started walking towards me. Something felt off, not sure what.
He approached me and asked for directions and then I realised he was wearing loafers - not what you'd wear for a walk on tracks and fields.
Next thing I know he grabbed my horse's rein and my thigh and is trying to pull me out of the saddle ! I tried to kick him but didn't get much force behind it as my foot was in the stirrup.
Thankfully my 16.2 IDx shied and this unbalanced the man for a second , long enough for me to get my whip arm up and hit him a couple of times (think I got him in the face , and it was a schooling whip too!). This allowed us to get away.
I have no idea if he was after me or my horse , I did report it to the police but they didn't really want to know.

Omg that must have been so scary! Thank goodness you didn’t fall off!

 

[Sossigpoker]

Omg that must have been so scary! Thank goodness you didn’t fall off!

It was honestly my horse who saved me by pulling away from the man!

 

[southerncomfort]

Well I have to say that some of our fellow riders don't help us much.

Met a couple of riders driving up a hill on a country road today. Slowed down to a crawl and moved right over and gave them plenty of space. Honestly, if I'd gone any slower I'd still be trying to pass them now.

Instead of thanking me, the rider at the back was furiously flapping her arm up and down and yelling at me!

This is currently a diversionary route and i can imagine they might have been passed by faster vehicles previously, but that's no excuse for being rude and not thanking drivers who do slow down.

I was left feeling really cross so goodness knows what non-horsey drivers must think. Probably think they won't bother next time.