Hacking in traffic

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Mythical

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Do you?
Does anyone hack into a town centre? (obviously, barring police and cavalry horses cause I know they certainly do!)
does anyone hack alone into a town centre???
(bonus points for pics, I'd love to see!)

After a huge confidence boost with my mare on Tuesday, I'd love to get out hacking more. Unfortunately the longest 'simple' hack from our yard is just over 2 miles and doesn't take very long at all. I'm a bit wary that all that extra confidence will be trouble though - Tuesday WAS Christmas day so very quiet out and any longer hacks involve traffic lights, or a right turn across a busy road or a large traffic island or a dual carriageway.

I do drive and I get at least a couple of thousand road miles a year on my bicycle too, so it's not like I don't know how to use the roads safely but I'm aware that as sensible as my horse is, she's not a bicycle and had a mind of her own.
We don't have any transport to get to road safety training even if we could find any and we don't have enough people on the yard to make it worth arranging a course there. Is there any training available online, or maybe a theory course??
 
I love hacking into town! I take him anywhere and regularly ride down a main road which often has traffic lit rosdworksvrtc. I ride him to the busy pub, took my salon to say hi to the girls, to my house. He doesnt care. We usually have a blast through the fields afterwards as we are very lucky here that we don't need to road ride I just choose to occasionally. However he did previously live beside the m25!! Took a while to desensitise him to the cows, pigs, sheep and alpacas that we are now surrounded by!
 
It's not a busy town centre, it's more an industrial park, Uni town, airport. (Cranfield Uni for those who want to know)

He's super good with traffic, I've not known him be frightened by any vehicle in Cranfield. However, a lady in a berka (sp?) was the most terrifying thing ever :P
 
I took my old pony over a busy a road into town inhand once.
He was a bit prancy and I doubt he had ever seen that much traffic/double decker buses before but he soon chilled out it was just the initial shock. Then he was quite happy because he was in a garden getting lots of fuss and then he wasnt bothered even slightly on the way home. :)
 
Nah said:
It's not a busy town centre, it's more an industrial park, Uni town, airport. (Cranfield Uni for those who want to know)

He's super good with traffic, I've not known him be frightened by any vehicle in Cranfield. However, a lady in a berka (sp?) was the most terrifying thing ever :P
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By Berka do you mean those cloaks that some Muslim women wear with a slit for the eyes? Cause I can't blame Ned, I find those scary too!
 
Yeah I used to ride passed schools, housing estates first time I had to stop at traffic lights I thought this is ridiculous. We've done roundabouts, dual carriage way (always up on verge for short distance), round industrial estates, near airport, have had trains pass, helicopters overhead but I'm in Scotland so not quite the M25 :) I wouldn't ride in to a city centre but certainly towns in the outskirts....getting a bit wimpy in my old age but had the last 10years off-road hacking only went on roads for a change but now we are back to roads only which is a bit of a shock to my system...horse is fine though. Just have fun and be safe, great you're getting confident.
 
We take ours along the A46 almost daily so heavy traffic of all kinds. Not been the other way into town but I am sure she would be fine. I would worry more about her spooking at umbrellas and people popping in and out of the shops than the traffic to be honest. trouble is if she did spook at something on the pavement she would be into the traffic.
 
Yes & no. In my teens we hacked through anything, regularly using the main road to find our way home if we got lost. And on one occasion rode down a town high street when it was busy, being sensible teens we stuck to the pavements because it was getting dark. I'm sure we weren't loved for it. So my mare has seen it all. I generally avoid town centres though for fear of just annoying people. However, to get to one bridleways we trot past a small shopping precinct. Another we use back streets before turning onto 50m of main road near a small town centre, crossing large traffic lighted crossroads, then disappearing into backstreets again. Also we divert from one route through a housing estate, across a huge junction with about 8lanes of traffic in all leading to an industrial estate with McDonald's drive thru. Both mine will happily stand at the lights with artics etc turning in close by etc, or wait in the centre of a junction to turn with traffic flowing either side. However, I do plan the times carefully so that its easy for drivers to use outside lane to pass, rather than being held up. Until recently we used to use a large roundabout leading to mways & a town centre, however a subway has been cleared further along so we use that now. And regularly cross mway bridges or use subways. We are just outside a town, so most routes either involve crossing a mway to get away from a town, or cutting across the corners of the town to get to places on the other side.
 
I used to ride at Vauxhall City Farm, right in the middle of London. Our 'hacking' was around the back streets there!

No pics of us out and about, but here is the pony himself finding a suitable spot in which to lather himself in sand after working (in his opinion anyway) very, very hard:rolleyes:

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The horses were pretty much fully traffic proof, bless them, although not necessarily grass proof, finding that very very exciting indeed! :D
 
Mythical said:
By Berka do you mean those cloaks that some Muslim women wear with a slit for the eyes? Cause I can't blame Ned, I find those scary too!
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I do :P
I don't think he would have bothered usually, but it was very windy and she was flapping about all over the place! Lots of snorting and fancy dressage moves followed shortly :P
 
Although we have fab country hacking where we are now, I have (and still do!) ridden Blaze in every kind of traffic situation you could ever think of :)
Through city centres, along a seafront promenade, over motorway bridges and along very busy roads. We have been past road works, had police cars scream past with the blues and twos on, through the middle of an airport, with planes taking off on either side of us, and on one notable occasion I got very lost during a 7 hour solo hack and ended up riding her down the verge of a dual carriageway with articulated lorries hurtling past at 70mph. I must stress that she is the ONLY horse I would ever do this with as I trust her absolutely.
My youngster hacks out well in most traffic situations. She started out with Aunty Blaze and progressed to leading out hacks in other company. She will have a good old spook on a bridleway but is sensible where traffic is concerned.
My new girl is also fab on the roads and very well mannered, thanks to her previous mum!
Having horses that are traffic proof is very important to me as I take mine here, there and everywhere.
 
I regularly ride mine through our busy market street. Although it's only a small town, it's still hustle and bussle and we meet allsorts, including the farmers' market, balloons, pubs, buses, vintage cars, poppies on the cenotaph and lots of people too. It's a very old market town, dating from Norman times and I feel proud to live there when I ride through!!
Once through the street, the world opens up to some amazing hacking through the Cotswolds so I am very lucky!!
 
One day out hacking we tried a new route that we hadn't tried before, got lost, and ended up on a main road with traffic lights and road works, along with numatic drills and diggers.

The horses were so good, and we found it rather funny stopping at the red lights with the cars.
 
Yup, once upon a time I kept a horse on the edge of a town and sometimes rode in for chips or to visit the pet shop.

I think it was in many respects safer than the very rural area where I now live; people fly down these lanes.

Although drivers were sometimes impatient with me when I rode through town, which is, I think, because we weren't where they expected us to be.
 
Rudolph_bum said:
Did you get mobbed my tourists? You wouldn't be able to move down Milsom Street with the amount of tourists everywhere.
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Ah but what a good idea to charge down there screaming "tallyhoooooo!!" to get to the sales in Jollys. I can just see it now... People leaping out the way, screaming shoppers.

I'll just tie the horse outside, grab me bargains and canter back to the yard :D
 
O yeah.

BH is master of town traffic. I hacked round the suburbs of Cambridge and up one of the main roads into town and over a huge elevated roundabout all the time.

I will find a photo :)

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Underneath the roundabout at the top of the road is the A14 :D
 
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We do sometimes, though it's only a small town.
To be honest it is a lot safer than the country lanes as there are no blind bends and you don't get driven at by people doing 60mph and there's always somewhere to get off the road in an emergency. The only problem is that mine is the sort of pony that all the little kids want to pat so sometimes it takes a long time to get anywhere.
 
Used to ride regularly through City center, about once a month, used bus lanes where applicable, bus drivers really good, whole ride takes about 3.5 hours there and back depending on how long I stayed at cafe and loo stop at the park, the Cafe and loo is on a bridleway, hoping to do it again at some point, did it for a few years on my own and with a friend, not done it for a while as been hacking alone a lot and had some lameness issue's this year.

Quite fun seeing peoples faces when they see a horse riding in a city, did it on a poppy day parade in a load of traffic, that was testing :)
 
I'm very lucky that my connie will hack anywhere with any traffic as close as, including big stuff like combines etc he's just not phased by anything......except them very scary things, dock leaves!!

As a child we used to hack in and around Cambridge town centre, up and down the Newmarket Road subway and often be seen collecting charity money on pony back in the market square, one of our team used to tie his skewbald cob Fred to a parking meter outside what used to be Robert Sayles (John Lewis) while he used their loo's! Made it to the Cambridge Evening News on many an occasion!
 
Molasses said:
central london on the serpentine bridge:D

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All i can say about that is what a fantastic picture!


Maybe Grace and I will have a hack to our nearest Chippy too when we get a suitable day again. We could even be really brave and go to our local KFC. I'm sure she'd realise it was worth the ride when she tucked into my...sorry.. HER... Popcorn chicken!
 
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