How many bridleways do you have in your area

paganamber

paganamber

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Shammer, Kilkelly, Co Mayo Ireland
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We have ONE and it is barbed wire lined, hardly any grass and BORING! Only other is a permissive bridleway and that is blocked which is legal as you can only ride on it with permission, the owner dont like horses :eek:

Apart from that it's either main roads or trespass!
 
I have quite a few only drawback is have to ride on mega busy roads to reach them! which when you have 4 youngsters isnt always a good thing...although my childrens shetland is pretty much 110% in traffic, my 2 year old isnt really bothered by traffic, my new boy is supposed to be 100% but we will have to see as he only arrived yesterday, my arab on the other hand is scared of his own shadow but getting better. annoyingly there are footpaths which run behind my fields directly onto the bridleway but of course we cannot use them :(
 
Scotland doesn't really 'do' bridleways, but I'm lucky enough to keep my horse on the Duke of Buccleugh's estate so have access to several thousand acres of off road riding... It's absolute heaven for me; you can hack out for hours and not meet anyone or have to go on a road!

Moved up from Dorset where there was a huge number of great bridleways but you did need to do a reasonable amount of roadwork to link some routes.
 
Lots (sorry!), I can leave my field and go straight onto a bridleway, which in turn leads me into NT woods, which links again with other Bridleways and Byways. If I travel about 100 feet on the very quiet country lane from my field, I go onto a Byway - this is my 'round the block', it's about two miles, and is half byway half lanes - ours are so quiet it's usual to ride for an hour and not see a single vehicle. We also have reservoirs to ride around, again very quiet, the occasional dog walker and fishermen in season.

We do have a few problems though, if anyone is in the SW and watches the One Show this Monday evening, the big pheasant shoot that will be shown is only a mile or two from us - we and many others used to ride through the permissive paths, but it's not great now - having to ride through pheasant pens and over electric fencing isn't for me or my horse!
 
rhino said:
Scotland doesn't really 'do' bridleways, but I'm lucky enough to keep my horse on the Duke of Buccleugh's estate so have access to several thousand acres of off road riding... It's absolute heaven for me; you can hack out for hours and not meet anyone or have to go on a road!

Moved up from Dorset where there was a huge number of great bridleways but you did need to do a reasonable amount of roadwork to link some routes.
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we need a jealous smiley. you lucky thing
 
One right at the back of me but I have to go round on the road to get on it and then you have to negotiate speeding bikes,quad bikes,loose Gypsy dogs,tethered ponies steep drops,overgrown brambles and barb wire fences to get...nowhere!
 
Spot_the_Risk said:
Lots (sorry!), I can leave my field and go straight onto a bridleway, which in turn leads me into NT woods, which links again with other Bridleways and Byways. If I travel about 100 feet on the very quiet country lane from my field, I go onto a Byway - this is my 'round the block', it's about two miles, and is half byway half lanes - ours are so quiet it's usual to ride for an hour and not see a single vehicle. We also have reservoirs to ride around, again very quiet, the occasional dog walker and fishermen in season.

We do have a few problems though, if anyone is in the SW and watches the One Show this Monday evening, the big pheasant shoot that will be shown is only a mile or two from us - we and many others used to ride through the permissive paths, but it's not great now - having to ride through pheasant pens and over electric fencing isn't for me or my horse!
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im the same area and love the hacking, it was a huge reason for pony to stay in the area.
 
paganamber said:
we need a jealous smiley. you lucky thing
Click to expand...

Can I make you even more jealous?

Here is my hacking:

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ps, that's not even a house you see, it's a ruined castle!

:)
 
We have a good variety BUT all of them (apart from one) have horrible little metal gates that swing back very quickly so when you're trying to ride a big horse through they're only just wide enough and then swing back onto you. My girl once caught caught on a gate (luckily her hi viz rug took most of it) and she's now nervy of them, bless her. I will only hack along them in company with people who can hold them wide open (well as wide as they will go!) for me to go through. I wish they were all wooden hunting gates, we are fine with those! Likewise with big gates (normal field sized ones!)

There are a few bridle paths along tracks without the gates but all the fields have the gates.

I so wish I lived closer to my friend (not far from Badminton) as they have beautiful hacking and obviously being Beaufort stomping ground all of the gates are horse friendly!
 
We have a restricted RUPP right off the yard - and local council have it just restricted to walkers, cyclists and horse riders so no motorised vehicles allowed now which is great. At the far end you hit some small roads but sadly getting busier year on year as cars use it as a bit of a cut through. Even though council have made it a "quiet lane". There are some other great tracks/bridleways/ (not quite sure what they are) in the village too which take you further afield on some great rides but have to deal with a bit of busy road to get to them first so is wiser to hack with others up there. Once up on them there are some great fields we are allowed through to (apart from some of the scary gates to open/close!) so can do some nice long distance circular rides. So overall I would say we are lucky.
 
Almost straight off the yard we can get onto the moors has a decent length of bridleway the whole length of the Edge, and you can go several routes through different villages etc.

I'd say theres about 3/4 more in reasonable (a few hours round trip) hacking distance. :) Consisting of moorland/fields/wooded tracks. Quite lukcy although for the further afield ones you have to negotiate a fairly main road, but generally it isn't too bad. Oh and one goes round the side of a quarry which is fine unless your horse spooks the wrong way. ;) We can also get onto the Chatsworth Estate (no not the one from Shameless ;) ) easily. :)

Coming down off the moor
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We don't have any bridleways but do have lovely hacking through the woods,orchards and can get into the national trust land. There are 2 toll rides within hacking distance (I'm not a member) and the lanes are quiet anyway :D.
 
Only two within riding distance, one is through a field that frequently has loose horses wandering about and the far end has fences right up to the track. The horses in the field harrass riders and can reach passing horses so it's really a no go. The other one has one area heavily embedded with huge stones and it's awful to ride over, the rest of the track is rough so the only benefit is no traffic. So we don't really have any that are useful, loads further away if you box up which is not always an option.
 
We have fantastic hacking, mile after mile of bridleways and quite alot of permissive and access land. Only problem is gates, my last two horses learned to stand quietly while I opened gates but G still gets very anxious at the moment.

We did look at moving and buying somewhere with land but we've stayed where I am on DIY because I don't know anywhere else with such good hacking.
 
I'm in Cheshire and I think the riding is pretty rubbish here TBH. I've lived in a few areas of Cheshire and not found anywhere great, unless you live near Delamere Forest or Whitegate Way. I used to ride in Surrey and Hampshire and parts of that were spectacular for riding.
 
I'm in north surrey and am very lucky in that there are lots of commons around me which you are allowed to ride all over. They are all quite well connected up by bridleways too. You have to do a bit of roadwork from the yard to gte there but once you are on th common you can go for miles :)
 
Quite a few but we have to ride for a good half hour to get to them, luckily on country roads. Our bridlepaths have so many damn gates though its awful!!! On, off, on, off...you get the picture LOL
What we miss is a short ride, there is no loops (without having to turn around) that take an hour. Our quickest route involves a bridlepath with 3 gates (thats one of the fewest gated bridlepaths) only over 3 fields but can take us hour and half to complete!!!
Our worst bridlepath for gates is very long and to be honest the best off country one as we can be off road upto an hour and has fantastic views over the River Wharfe Valley but has 15 gates! Horrendous!!!!
 
We have one about 30 mins from the yard down roads! Problem with living in large towns and citys..... There is no cantering there though its a permissive track round the edge of the woods and the council thought they would try to help stop it getting churned up by laying a stone path so we cant do anything! Next closest is about 45mins - hour away (through the first woods) so its a bit rubbish, we do have the local green to hack around but thats tiny and has loads of roads running through it. But hey all the horses are bombproof in traffic ;)
 
Christi - that first pic doesn't even look real!! amazing!!

Don't have a huge amount of variation but there is a network of bridleways round some nice grass fields and then it's just tiny lanes which don't really have any traffic on them, so good enough for me. :)
 
Lots around me. :) I always have to do a little bit of road work when I first leave the yard but the nearest bridleway is 5 minutes ride away. I can also link quite a few together as a lot of the cross roads and then carry on. The only problem is that there are a lot of gates on them but luckily my boy is very good at them so we don't have a problem. :D
 
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