How do you rate your hacking facilities?

How long can you stay for

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MizElz

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Facilities seems a silly way to describe it....what I'm basically asking is how happy are you with the places you are able to hack out, and what do they consist of?
 
under "how do you rate the importance of hacking?" i wanted to tick "utmost importance" but didnt cos i felt that calling it "cruel to your horse if you dont hack out at all" was a little extreme
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Our hacking is pretty rubbish. The yard goes straight out onto a busy/fast main road where the cars & lorries fly along at 60mph+. We do have some off road hacking, but you have to negotiate the busy road to get to it. Also, it isn't gated off - there are cattle grids instead, straight out onto the road. 3 people in the last 18months have come off over there and their horses have got stuck/injured in the cattlegrid.

I'm moving soon though, where the hacking will be much better. Unfortunately the school won't be as nice, but you can't have everything (unless your loaded) lol!
 
bugger...sorry about that! yes i can see that the top option is a little extreme LOL! should have made it multiple choice too, im not very good at polls
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and now its too late to edit!
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the hacking where Frankie is is crap.......the yard goes straight out onto a main road with lorries boy racers and all sorts, plus am next to Bournemouth airport! luckily Frankie doesnt mind the planes but it hardly makes for leisurely hacking. there is a common i can hack to but again have to negotiate 2 busy main roads.....

i want to move him to Cornwall
 
our hacking is ok..but we have no bridelpaths at all..and although i have a farm track and the odd field when down to setaside(i live on a farm) i 99% of the time ride on roads..which isnt ideal!!
so yes there are things i would like to change
again i ticked the extreme opetion athought its not necessarily cruel!
 
I moved from a yard with fantastic off-road hacking, to one that has a lot of roads (normally between half hour and an hour of riding) to go along to get to the decent hacking routes.
Our council is rapidly closing off the off-road shortcuts, hence my membership in the local bridleways association to try and keep them open.

I hack at weekends, and once or twice in the evenings after work, as both myself and my horse love hacking out. Others at my yard won't leave the yard, other than to go along the end of the drive and back.

My riding is probably along some of the busiest roads in the country - I regularly go on or across the woodhead pass, and across the end of a motorway etc, but once we're off the roads, and onto the moors and hills then it makes it all worthwhile.
 
We are pretty lucky where we are we can do 45min hack with only crossing a road twice, we also have 3 field that we can get to via a bridleway. For more off orad hacking then you need to do a mixutre of road work and bridleways and takes about 45mins to get there. Downside is it is a 40min hack to any hills and I like to incorporate hillwork.

Hacking is very important for a horses education, however if I was on a main road I would box somewhere and if I had a horse that was dangerous to hack then sorry it would not be hacked out unless there were no roads
 
safety's more important to me than anything out hacking. where i am now is surprisingly great; because it's so flat, with very few hedges, i can see vehicles approaching from literally miles away in any direction, and they can see me = tons of time to get out of the way, and for them to slow down. have only had one car driver go past me too fast, in 2 years here. there are droves, a very long bridleway beside the main drain (big river) about 1 1/2 miles away, and fields i am allowed to ride around. it is absolutely perfect for hacking out, especially on young horses.
one drawback is that there are no hills, but you can't have everything! also, i am half a mile from the main road (A17) which is a very fast road, and i never go near it on a horse, and never cross it... just not worth the risk imho.
 
My hacking isn't too bad as the majority of roads are country roads but we still get a lot of idiots!
It would definatly be a key factor for me if I was looking for a yard/house and woudln't settle for anything worse than I have now. Live in the country and we have no bridlepaths around us, you have to hack for at least an hour to get to one.
 
I'm not far from kerilli so much of what she's put about the roads applies - although I'm afraid our drivers aren't as considerate! We also have two lorry yards in the village and all the roads have big ditches beside them. I have no school or surface so pretty much have to hack out, there are a couple of farm tracks locally but mostly it's roads, roads, roads.

Still - my horses are very very good in traffic - even the baby!
 
Our hacking is OK. It is 90% on (quiet) roads but we have loads of hills so it is great for fittenning. There is a wood just down the road where you can have a canter and pop the odd log but it isn't amazing. About 45mins hack is a gallop track up on the moorland which is nice but the ground is rather flinty so you have to be careful plus you have to hack down a fairly busy road to get there.

Personally I loathe hacking, I find it incredibly boring and only do it under duress and with friends. However, I do try to hack out more if my pony is stabled because I feel it is nice for her to see something other than four walls and the arena in winter. In Summer I don't tend to hack more than once a week MAX.
 
We have absolutely the opposite. Narrow lanes with high hedges & as we are on top of a plateau, very hilly.
Thankfully the lanes are very quiet and we have nice hacking, but I actually try and avoid going up & down the main hills too much to protect their hocks - Sienna has the biggest muscles (gaskin area) I've ever seen!!
& in answer to the poll, I probably wouldn't own a horse if I couldn't hack, especially now I'm old & windy
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I used to love hacking. I believe it adds great variety for horse and rider and is an excellent part of a young horse's education.
Unfortunately we have to cross a horrendously busy and fast road to get to our hacking. The hacking is fantastic when you get past the road!
I know that if I ever came off my horse he would leg it home straight across that road, and for me this thought has put me off hacking from this yard.
 
I have just come back from a farm where the hacking was supposed to be quieter, from a yard where we are directly onto a fast road. I found the quieter lanes more dangerous as they were narrower and because they were quieter people really sped and hugged the corners . On the busy road it appears to be safer because everyone is slower as there is more around.
 
No off road hacking (unless you hack a few miles down country lanes to get there) just county lanes and main roads. IT SUCKS!
 
Our hacking is brilliant!! Dont have to go on road for more than ten yards at some points!! straight onto a bridleway that goes across a golf course and into Ashridge Forest. Beautiful.Plus a fantastically massive common to charge across without getting in the way of dog walkers and other riders!! Excellent for a horse with no brakes cuz you can gallop until he runs out of puff!!
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Our hacking is fabulous. Mainly country lanes, with little bridsleways leading off them, with fabulous ground. We can hack right over the Midshires way, and have access to toll rides, gallops etc.
 
My hacking is good, the farm is surrounded by thousands of acres of fields. It can be a bit rubbish just before the hay and barley is cut, as can't really ride in some of the fields.

Hacking is the second most important thing when picking a yard (good turnout is most important).

There are some bridlepaths, but I don't use them because they're mostly hard tracks. There's a lot of moorland type land here, but its mostly quite boggy so I avoid it. If I was brave I'd ride anywhere, but generally stick to the farmers 700 acres as I don't cause bother to surrounding farmers. Even though we have the right to ride anywhere...
 
I am not far from farhill we have good hacking but we have a lane called Matley Lane that is really bad its used as a rat run and is very narrow. There is a bridle path up one side for so long and then it runs out. Its our only route to some of the best bridletracks including the Pennine Way, Longedale and the Tamevally trails. Once you have braved the mile strech of Matley Lane its well worth it. My horses are very good in all heavy traffic but the drivers on this lane are ridiculous they come at speed and with little or no consideration for us riders.
 
look are where i used to hack out.......miss it muchly!!

the first two are the river gannel estuary....literally had to cross a busy road (with a 'horse' crossing!) then we were here

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this is crantock beach.....could only go on it between November and April or something like that. took about 30 mins to get here

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snot fair!
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want it back
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The only reason I ride along Matley lane is to get onto the rising moon fields - shortly getting transformed into a golf course
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You must be very close to me, we've probably passed each other out hacking without realising it
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I keep my horses at home. Unfortunately we don't have any suitable hacking around us. We are on a main road which is far too dangerous to hack on. I do ride round our feidls for a change occasionally, but there are only 10 acres so it isn;t really enough. I spend most of my time schooling, but would like somewhere safe to hack.
 
I think the hacking at my new yard is pretty good, but I've only been there 6 days and have only been along the lane so far! The lanes are really quiet and like someone else said very flat with no hedges so you can see. There are a few leafy bridleways and byways, then there are acres of farmland with XC jumps that if you pay £50 a year (I have) you can ride on, and you can also follow the agricultural college horse ride. Hacking is really important to me, am hoping that George will be calm enough this weekend to give it a proper go.
 
We have direct access to a network of bridleways, unfortunately they are also used by idiots who cannot control their dogs or kids at times, which is what I would change. We have some busy road work but also some great field and woods rides. You can ride from between 15 minutes and 4 hours so I would say our hacking is great. What would make it better would be it being private
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We're on a 3500 acre estate with a grass bridleway that runs round the perimeter, plus I can cut across or round any fields if I want to - provided I dont damage any crops. Lanes are fairly quiet too, although you will meet tractors and the like. There are bridlepaths that are OK that do mean you can go for quite some distance off the estate.
I'd like more hills to be honest and less pheasants! But on the whole its bloody good hacking
 
I rate ours perfect, open fields mixed in with some bridlepaths and hacking for hours with no roads, and the closest road in only a small quiet lane that you dont even have to use. Hacking is of utmost importance to me
 
The hacking where I live is absolutely perfect.

Yes it was a major factor in where we chose to buy our farm.

We have our own forest and had lots of trails cut out in it. We also live at the end of two dead end tracks, hence we have direct access to miles and miles of trails and never have to go on a road if we don't want to....sometimes I want to though as I like my horses to keep their hand in where traffic is concerned.

Our riding is through forest, woods, across fields, along the river which has beaches, up hills and lots of little quiet lanes.

I have absolutely no criticisms of the hacking where I live.
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