How's this for desensitising? Hacking along a motorway

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Patches

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Took Tilly on the long lines for a hack around the farm today as the lad that's breaker her couldn't come today due to family commitments.

Decided to get her close to some traffic. She was good. Can't get any closer than the bottom of the embankment of the M6! :D
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Footpath under the motorway. There's a strange run off drain under here which means you have a path on one side, and water (like a mini canal) on the other.
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Oh looky...the donkey does indeed track up effortlessly! :)
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Aww! :D

What some people do here to desensitise the horses is tie them to the side of the road and leave them there for a few days/week!

That or turn them out in a field as close as possible to the road!
 
Eeep! I wouldn't dream of tethering her anywhere. Our lanes are narrow with small embankments/verges, it wouldn't be feasible even if I wanted to try it.

It was more to test her reaction to alot of traffic. The M6 is quite busy, obviously, so there was never a shortage of heavy traffic for her to see at close quarters.

She's going to hack out with my mare tomorrow, safely tucked on the inside.
 
is that where the M6 meets the A14? horse crossing sigh there who in there right mind would use it and where does it go
 
It's great for getting them used to busy roads doing that isn't it, my regular hack goes beside and over/under the A1m, my mare's field's also right beside it, so I've never had any issues with traffic shyness.
 
I have a main arterial road on one side of my fields and the London-Weymouth railway line on the other. We get about 30 trains an hour plus the occasional steam train (like last night). None of mine, not even the new one, bat an eyelid at them even when they whistle.
The chap in the house next door is also a steam enthusiast and currently has two steam rollers and a steam lorry together with a JCB, a tipper lorry, a dump truck, a cement mixer and a huge flat-bed lorry that he sometimes uses to transport the steam rollers!!!!!

It's very good for them. At the moment he is building a gigantic "shed" to house the engines . . . . they spend all day watching him dig holes with the JCB
 
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I hack out right beside the main A30 dual carriageway in Devon; its even closer than your Motorway!!!! If I had a lunging whip and held it at arms length, I reckon I'd be tickling the tanker drivers' noses! Seriously, its close, blimmin close, and only a thin little wire fence between us and them, but my boy can cope with it he's a real little star.
 
I used to be stabled right next to the A14 and had to go over the double bridge overhead of it to get anywhere,or the small road which ran right longside side the A14 with just a barrier seperating it with my old mare. Luckily she was good as gold in traffic!

Hated being that close it it though. I'd no longer dream of stabling my horses that close to a main road at any point now. The day I came off her and saw her running in that direction and out of sight scared me shitless! Especially as our yard entrance was about 250m from the A14 sliproad right onto it. I ran back down the road where she'd disappeared to, and couldn't see her and the gate was still shut to the yard.

Luckily...it turned out she jumped the gate back into the yard and I found her in her stable!

I like my miles and miles of fields now XD And no road in sight for about 20mins :D


Congrats with your horse though :D Very pretty and nice and promising! :D
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
I hack out right beside the main A30 dual carriageway in Devon; its even closer than your Motorway!!!! If I had a lunging whip and held it at arms length, I reckon I'd be tickling the tanker drivers' noses! Seriously, its close, blimmin close, and only a thin little wire fence between us and them, but my boy can cope with it he's a real little star.
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Ive done that ride a few times, but around the okehampton area
 
my youngsters do the train field for a couple of weeks prior to going on the oads. has worked every time! .............. a pidgeon doesnt have wheels or make a pre i am coming noise!
 
One of the hacks we do sometimes is literally feet away from a railway line, fortunately only for a short time. It's probably scarier for the riders who aren't used to it than the horses - the horses I go out on/with barely bat an eyelid, even when one of the "everlasting" long trains whooshes by. I think they're used to the eerie jingling/vibrating sound they make just before they appear. There's nothing much on the roads that match the trains, so our steeds are well and truly desensitized - oh, apart from boulders (what is with boulders - crouching lions I suppose?!) ;)
 
Our local RC show used to be held in a field about the same distance from the M62,as Patches is from the M6 :D (it did make it difficult to tell what the judge was saying!)
 
A gelding I ride JUMPED over a red bull can the other day....he's also rubbish in heavy/large/stationary traffic (not to mention sheep, gates, plastic, paint etc etc) Will walk into any box or trailer though... puzzling.
 
Our yards about boundary is approx 10 foot from the M62, the eeriest thing is when theres an accident and they close it, the horses freak out as there is no droning background noise (and it feels weird to us to!)

We always say its the fumes as well that have a calming effect on the horses!
 
i took a new horse i brought last week over the m6 in staffs for the first time on wednesday night.
he wasnt impressed with the lorrys coming at him then disappearing and being the other side of him 2 seconds later.:rolleyes:
luckily my wife was riding our other horse which is brill in heavy traffic and crossing over bridges.
hopefully he'll learn to be calm when going over the bridge in future
 
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