How good is your hacking?

[The Xmas Furry]

I am now building a list of HHO'ers that I am now planning on irritating ingratiating myself with, to plot a holiday hacking visit

 

[nagblagger]

I'm already on the road...

 

[HorseMaid]

I'm two fields away from the boundary of Exmoor, there's a bit of roadwork on quiet lanes but then we've got fields, woods, moor. Bridleways galore. I only moved my horse there this spring and don't feel like I've scratched the surface of all the different routes yet, I feel very lucky after previous yards.

 

[expanding_horizon]

I’m on edge of downs /race horse country. Lots of old turf and chalk grasslands. Good ground all year. Lots of canter / gallop places. Bridleways connect for miles. Does get busy in afternoons / weekends. I tend to ride when racehorses out as dogs on leads, lots of officials and no kids / model planes / few cyclists etc.

However I drive a reasonable distance to yard so can have great hacking, well draining turnout etc. lots of closer yards!

 

[Keith_Beef]

The hacking here is really quite good, in that we can ride from the yard along the road for ten minutes or so and then be in the forest. We can ride from here all the way to Saint Germain (the morning to get there, picnic then ride back home in the afternoon) with two places where we need to cross the road and the final approach along a road.

But the terrain is so flat! For most of the year, all you can see is either straight ahead along the path or five metres to the side and the trees. Not much chance of a nice view of a landscape.

We even ride all the way to Versailles, sometimes, but that takes a whole day to get there, so we stay overnight and ride back the following day.

 

[nikkimariet]

On the right horse I’ve got fairly good hacking. Unfortunately I’m now on the wrong horse who is scared in traffic.

Narrow twisting fast rural roads. It’s a real shame as he’s a gem to hack traffic aside (has his moments ofc).

 

[silv]

I used to have access to the forestry block behind my house where there was miles of great tracks, unfortunately they are logging it at the moment so really missing it. Have a couple of friendly farmers nearby who let me ride on their massive properties however they are all lambing at the moment so that is off limits. A few big council parks and a beach are all within easy distance if I want to take the trailer out and one track round the village but it is only safe at the weekends as you have to ride along a main highway which has lorries on it during the week. NZ'rs are nice people but they change when they get behind the wheel of a vehicle and don't believe in slowing down or giving you room. I rarely came across this attitude in the UK.

 

[saddlesore]

I voted ok as whilst we are lucky enough to have lots of places off road for a good yeeha there is plenty of road work involved too

 

[scats]

We have an on-site small private farm ride that you can loop in a few different ways. If you do the shorter track it’s about 25 minutes walk for one loop, but take the longer loop and it adds on another 10 minutes. But you can figure of eight it and ride a few different variations and be out for 45 minutes plus.
The rest is road work. A long lane to reach very busy main road, but a couple of quiet housing estates off this that you can do a decent half hour loop round.
Annoyingly we are less than 2 miles from the beach and a long coastal bridlepath, but it involves negotiating the horrendously busy main road to get there.
I have just been given permission to ride a new route for a few weeks on the adjoining farmland, but that is temporary until they turn it in autumn.

 

[Caol Ila]

I have about 10-15 minutes of roadwork (not the worst roads; not the best) that accesses a significant network of trails which go further than you can ride in a day. There's Mugdock Park, then you can follow the West Highland Way to Balmaha (it gets un-horse-able after that....until you get to Crianlarich). You can cross the A809 at Edenmill and access the Kilpatrick Hill trail network. You can pick up the old Strathkelvin railway. You can putz around on the trail network in Milngavie itself.

The downside is that all of these trails are busy with mountain bikers, hikers, dog walkers, et. al. The other downside is that this this a rocky part of the world. So the opportunities for fast work are very, very limited. But after having my a horse at a series of UK yards with shite hacking (after Boulder, CO), I am so, so greatful for all of it.

 

[TheHairyOne]

I have gone with ok, but its very nearly brilliant! The only thing that lets it down is ghe 60 mph road we have to use to get out of the yard to get anywhere! After that I have a huge variety to choose from. A pretty good bridle way network, forestry, 2 (private) farms to ride around the edges of, hills, flat, pubs, cross country jumps, hedges, a ford, roman ruins...!

The trouble we have is how long we want to be out for and what sort of ride do we want for the most part and in the SE and close to a large town I am very lucky. If only there was another way to get to them.

 

[Northern]

This is part of the Bicentennial National Trail, just outside of the capital of Australia
The trail runs 5,330km from North QLD down to Victoria. You can ride along it for as far as you wish (or the whole thing if you're brave enough!).
We can't complain about the hacking right on our doorstep!

 

[Ahrena]

I have tonnes and tonnes of bridleways interlinked with mostly quiet lanes. Huge variety of loops; I think I lived here about 3 weeks before I rode in the same place twice.

I feel very lucky, definitely the best hacking I’ve had (minus a blissful summer as a working pupil on a huge country estate)

If I wish to be fussy; there aren’t many places for a good long gallop but a 3 min lorry drive up the road gives me that. And sometimes you have to be a bit careful when exploding as not all the bridleways are suitable for horses due to very rocky old moor paths.

 

[Cloball]

5 mins up the road to some quiet but small forestry and about 20mins of continuous steep uphill onto the mountain and Snowdonia. It is difficult to do the mountain on an unfit pony and it's very rocky for fast work plus there are wild stallions so I've not been up much yet. Plus there aren't as many interlinked bridleways as you'd think so it's difficult to know where your access is. What I do feel lucky about though is the lanes around us are so quiet and the local riders have trained all the traffic very well for which I am grateful as there are some lovely scenic hilly lanes for fittening.

 

[w1bbler]

I just have to cross a main road & I'm on Dartmoor.
my only complaint is that in bad weather I still have to access the moor to reach sheltered lanes (unless I want to hack along a main A road)

 

[shanti]

I live on a quiet dirt road that only has 2 properties on it, so almost no traffic, and hundreds of acres of pine forest about 300 meters from my doorstep plus two large, beautiful lake areas within riding distance. I couldn't wish for anything better really.

 

[PSD]

Mine is really good. You can go out for hours and not see a road, there is a guided bus way that you probably will need to go near, but the buses are very accommodating and will slow down when going past. They’re only every 30 minutes or so too.

You will encounter push bikes, tractors and sometimes scramblers, but it’s mostly bridle paths and stretches of grass. You can go into a local country park too if you’re happy to do a little road work. Our farmer puts big logs out on the fields for jumping over too, I’m very lucky really.

 

[ycbm]

I have unlimited use of the Somerford Park farm ride. Completely traffic free, nearly six miles in 3 loops that all meet in the middle. Any two loops is a slow hour or a faster 40 minutes. The whole lot a slow 90 minutes or a faster hour. About 30 small cross country fences, a river wade, a stream crossing and two water fences as well.

I can ride the 3 loops 6 different ways, 2 loops 6 different ways, school first then do a loop to relax, go for a gallop or jump around one of the 2 huge cross country schooling areas as part of my ride and as a livery I can go round as many times as I want (paying guests are allowed one circuit for £17, and the cross country is extra).

It's beautiful open countryside and has ups and downs too, and if you're really lucky you might even spot an otter in the Dane.

I never want to ride for much more than an hour, so it's perfect for me, 4 minutes from my house and the ride starts outside the door to my stables.
.

 

[tda]

I actually live on a bridleway, tho they are farm tracks really, maintained by farmers and used for the local shoot so they are all pretty stoney. I can set off for an hour or two wandering round, but no real canter sections.
I can also go a mile or so on roads each way and access more off road tracks/golf course/ Woodland
It's my mini oasis and I consider myself very lucky, BUT the South Downs look fantastic

 

[HufflyPuffly]

Lovely quiet flat lanes or 20 mins up onto the Clwydian Hills, full of bridlepaths and byways. I have never ever had such good hacking .

 

[Bernster]

So envious of those of you with great hacking! Our yard has limited hacking, two routes really with mainly road work. The ride around the posh housing estate where the yard is situated is at least quiet and the cars drive slowly. The hack to the common isn’t quite so relaxing as there’s usually 1-2 drivers who aren’t considerate.

I accept it as the horses are happy and well looked after. We do have cholsey about 35 mins or so away. I really should box up there more often but it’s not as easy or as quick as doing straight off the yard.

 

[meleeka]

I put ok, but in reality there’s only one route. The permissive bridleway is overgrown and unusable now due to lack of use. The fields of ponies are now empty awaiting the vague possibility of building on. I can’t decide what came first, the lack of horses or the building

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

We have brilliant hacking, you have to go up or down an open single track lane, but it's only used for the residents or the couple of yards on it so not that busy and open field to the left, so plenty of verge to pull on to let things pass. Then you are out onto 6750 acres of woodland and open fields and beyond that you have the open Downs - we even have a bridleway on the estate called the gallops. You could literally hack forever. You do have to share it with others of course, but being so close to the Downs, you rarely get a huge concentration of people in any one place. I am so lucky.

 

[southerncomfort]

Not sure how to vote.

I love our hacking - a mixture of villages, quiet lanes, bridleways, and beautiful moorland tracks. The scenery is stunning and takes my breath away every time.

However, to get to longer rides we do about 15 minutes on a 60mph road. It's not busy at all, but it's tractors, motorbikes, and trucks going back and forth to a quarry.

I'm lucky that my boy is excellent on the roads so it doesn't bother me and its worth it.

Recently we went out for a 3 hour picnic ride with friends, taking in a beautiful reservoir and a stretch of the Trans Pennine Trail, and it was bliss!



ETA there is a hotel with stables opening next year on our part of the TPT if anyone fancies it!

 

[Skib]

I ride in Richmond Park. It is a perfect place to hack for an hour or two. There is a variety of wood and grassland, hills and meadows. But bear in mind, there is also a higher risk riding out in the open. One needs a safe horse (or teach a horse to hack safely there). And one needs to ride that horse safely.
My current share is not allowed to leave the Park but I previously hacked from other local yards and, thanks to Pegasus crossings, one can now ride on Wimbledon Common and through Ham, possibly even to Bushey Park. If one is prepared to drive out of London there is good hacking from riding schools in Surrey and if one travels into London, one can ride in Hyde Park.

 

[JGC]

I've voted "brilliant" as there are routes that you can go completely off-road for an hour/hour and a half, which suits me very well. Usually good places for cantering too. Only downside is in winter we get a lot of snow, so sometimes have to do roadwork for a few weeks until it melts. If you wanted to train for XC for example, you might need to do a bit more roadwork to do longer hacks.

The main downside is the hunting (I'm in France) from next Sunday to at least mi-January (and usually it's extended to end of Feb for certain game), which means that our woodland hacking is significantly less "safe" than the roads on every day except Wednesdays and Fridays!

 

[Julia0803]

I put ok…

There is a short route in one direction that goes into the local woods (3 miles), and you can extend it by then going around the local golf course (6miles). The downside with this is you have a good mile of his awful stoney track which leads to the yard, so you have to ride it on the way out and way home. I think it was the original road possibly. It’s large fist size pebbles and flints stuck to the floor (not a very good description I appreciate!). Even the shod horses pick their way across it, it’s horrid. It’s incredibly uneven, real twist your ankle type surface even if you were on foot. If you want to do the extended route you have to cross over the main B road, which is 50mph and bendy (cars speed up to 60/70mph) so difficult to see what’s coming. But it’s the least road-work route.

If you go out of the yard in the opposite direction you have a lot of roadwork, but then get to areas where there are bridleways linked by country lanes and it’s lovely- but you’ve got about 30 min roadwork to get there, then you’ll do 20 min bridleway/5 roadwork/10 bridleway/5 roadwork etc.

However, it would be a nightmare if your horse wasn’t bulletproof in traffic. One of the main routes leads you past several builders merchants and a chicken processing plant. There are multiple huge lorries, 18t jobbies, as well as the huge lorries with cranes on for carrying and lifting builders bags of soil etc. They’ve always been incredibly respectful, but they’re huge and noisy. We also have double decker buses going through the village as well as the usual crazy traffic. I wear a hat-cam.

If we didn’t have the 30 min roadwork to get anywhere (and of course the same in reverse on the way home) the hacking would be brilliant. I have done loops from the yard of up to 18 miles, so all around the local villages/hamlets.

 

[vam]

This has completely confirmed that i need to move areas or counties!
I put mainly roads. Despite where the yard is, to get to any sort of proper hacking it involves road work. I have a few off road bridleways but they aren't that good for more than a short trot and the byways have either been resurfaced or are only good when we have had a bit of rain. I could hack 40 mins up to Holbury Hill but I just dont always have the time to hack for nearly 3 hours, Leith Hill is a bit easier but very stoney and i would have to go the other side of where i am to get to the good spots.
I dont mind hacking for hours (2 and half hours is my limit really) but i dont want to spend nearly all of that time on roads to get there and back. Plus i'd rather ride for less time but cover more distance because i can actually trot and canter.
I might be in a position to move and possibly buy some land in a couple of years and the area will completely depend on how good the hacking is, my mare loves exploring and even if she comes back to jumping again, i spend more time hacking than jumping.

 

[MNMyShiningStars]

I put OK - we have a main road turning left our of our yard so that is really limited hacking that way. Turning right we have a small country road which is a 10 minute walk to any of the hacking, but when you get up there, there are some nice hacks and canter tracks. I miss my old yard which closed, that had more off road hacking.

 

[Birker2020]

We have to cross a main road which takes us to some decent 'block' hacking on lanes but links to a 40mph road. There is other hacking but again 40mph roads to navigate to get there.
I used to hack down the 50mph bit as a shortcut to come home, but only because Bailey was 99% bombproof in that sort of traffic and it was only for less than 1/4 of a mile.
Every Sunday I used to load up and go to a place a few miles away and park (by permission) in the pub carpark and hack round there, very quiet hacking, I actually was stabled in for two years back in 2014 and used to long rein Bailey as part of the her rehab up the lanes as it was quite and safe and had lovely fords and lanes.