Middle-aged girl racers

[bluewhippet]

I am on a very small and lovely yard. I am late forties, YO has just hit 60. We go on very fast hacks together or on our own. We are lucky in that after 20 mins' quiet road work, we reach woods that you could ride through all day.

I have an Arab who is fast and has endless stamina. We have a wonderful time galloping through the woods together. My YO is the same: acting like a pair of teenagers.

And yet the only other liveries on the yard, in the 4 years I have been there, are various teenagers. And they seem to spend all their time in the school!

 

[suffolkmare]

Maybe the 20mins roadwork is enough to put them off hacking? Perhaps they are so aware of the danger (warned by parents, general road safety from schools, etc) that they have become unnaturally cautious?!

 

[Rhodders]

I'm the wrong side of 40 and take no prisoners hacking with my friend, we're always out for 3-4hrs at a fair pace. There are loads of horses in our area but we never see any out or any sign that any have been out, I always wonder why no one hacks. I spent a few months at a yard once and they were ready to send a search party out for us after 3 hours, people did hack there but literally were out for 40 minutes.

 

[bluewhippet]

I think the teenagers are all reasonably reluctant riders - it is just one thing scheduled in by very well off parents - and it is all structured: pony club events, lessons. When there is not a programmed activity they don't ride at all. The 'they' is about 6 different teenagers that have been on the yard.

But then there have been a few grown ups who never seem to ride.

As a pony mad London child who worked slave labour hours at the local stables for rides, it is a real revelation to me how many people have horses and don't really ride them. My horse is a dream come true - he is my first horse after longing for one for most of my life. I ride all the time - I've had him 4 years and enthusiasm has not waned.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

This has made me smile - tonight at the yard my 63 year old friend asked if I was up for a "suicide" hack ( our mares haven't been out for a couple of weeks due to ice n snow) on Saturday...of course says I (51 year old)...the twenty year olds are using the arena! (Now Im hoping we come back in one piece!)

 

[bluewhippet]

I think it is great: I feel healthier now then I did 10 years' ago with tiny children at home. I love hearing about older people who are still zooming around on their horses.

When I bought my Arab, I kept being advised to get a very steady cob. I wanted the horse I longed for when I was a kid, and I obviously haven't grown up in that respect, as he is absolutely perfect.

 

[Deltaflyer]

I'm 55 and according to one of the instructors at the yard where I keep my horse people shouldn't go out hacking with me because I'm mad! I just like to have fun, we have lovely grassy off-road hacking so I make the most of it. Mind you, most of them think I'm certifiable because I'm doing Halton this year LOL

 

[Pennythetank]

It's funny, I don't have access to an arena unless I get my dad to box me and the horse out so I spend most of my time riding either on the road or in the horses paddock when it is dry enough. For maybe one/two months a year I can use my neighbours (farmer) field to gallop in and I normally persuade dad to bring me up the woods for a gallop once a fortnight.
So when I can get to an arena you can't normally get me out of it!!! Just the fact that there is a proper wall to do shoulder in along and jumps is enough to make me delirious lol.

 

[Burmilla]

I think I qualify as an old- girl racer! I'm 70 yrs old next week, down-sized last year to a13.3 hh Exmoor x ? 4yr old mare from a lifetime of tall, fast super-reactive Arabians and TBs. Exie and I spend a lot of time seeing the world and working on being straight and forward and doing an awful lot of transitions! We go for long hacks over the beach, up on the moors and through the woods - we sometimes have a hoon around, jump logs, banks and ditches! The other owners, mostly teens to twenty-somethings, on our lovely little private yard sit in the kitchen, chatting, being on their iPhones and planning their busy social lives. They ride in the school and rarely hack for more than an hour. No one else seems to be up for a longish, slowish hack, with a bit of fast work, and off road playing added in! So I usually potter off by myself with snacks, fruit, mobile, first aid kit and Hi-viz and hope I get back, at some point, with Exie n me still in good order and jollity!

 

[Tess Love]

I think I qualify as an old- girl racer! I'm 70 yrs old next week, down-sized last year to a13.3 hh Exmoor x ? 4yr old mare from a lifetime of tall, fast super-reactive Arabians and TBs. Exie and I spend a lot of time seeing the world and working on being straight and forward and doing an awful lot of transitions! We go for long hacks over the beach, up on the moors and through the woods - we sometimes have a hoon around, jump logs, banks and ditches! The other owners, mostly teens to twenty-somethings, on our lovely little private yard sit in the kitchen, chatting, being on their iPhones and planning their busy social lives. They ride in the school and rarely hack for more than an hour. No one else seems to be up for a longish, slowish hack, with a bit of fast work, and off road playing added in! So I usually potter off by myself with snacks, fruit, mobile, first aid kit and Hi-viz and hope I get back, at some point, with Exie n me still in good order and jollity!

Bravo! I hope I'm still doing this at 70.

 

[Lintel]

Not a fan of the school but sometimes for convenience and overall fitness it's the best option especially for fatty highland - although he would disagree!

But at 20 years old a full time job and a OH living nearly an hour away sometimes I just cant find the time for the lovely big long hacks where you end up thinking... Oops better get back before its dark!!

I tend to go for about 1-2 hours normally but try to go a good old jaunt once a month with the dark mornings and nights though it just hasn't been possible
Can't wait for the long summer nights.. And till OH lives nearer!!

But my goodness Burmilla I hope to be like you at 70!

 

[MissMistletoe]

I'm not middle aged but I've got a bit of fire in me!!

Most people of my age are either in the school or out riding two abreast along the road on a loose rein, chatting.

I can't be doing with sticking to the road and just marching along! I like to mix it up a bit and do a bit of fun stuff!

Banks, ditches, fords, logs are just screaming out to be ridden over, a 2 metre stretch of grass is most definately canter territory!

Life is for living, go have fun with your horse!

 

[wench]

If they like being in the school wages wrong with that?

Horses also need a variety of hacks, if you just take them out and thrash them up and down, they think they need to run everywhere!

 

[glamourpuss]

I love schooling. I love riding a well schooled responsive horse. I like jumping, competing in eventing (& I'm not going to get good dressage scores thrashing around on hacks all the time) & I love hacking.
My horses have a good variety of work to keep them as fit & supple as possible. I certainly enjoy my life & just because I don't want to hoon around on hacks doesn't mean I don't.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

Burmilla I want to go riding with you....

 

[ribbons]

I'm the same as OP. hack out for hours. We are lucky to have loads of off road hacking with plenty of woodland and logs/ditches to jump and good farmland tracks, excellent to gallop on.
Yet, the majority of the younger riders from neighbouring livery yard either ride in their school or hack out on a twenty minute loop round the lanes, and quite often don't do either but stick horses on the walker.
This old crone will hang up her hat if and when my body dictates I can no longer ride out at all paces on all terrain, and it will be a very sad day.
Sometimes I wonder if the youngsters know what they are missing.

 

[Merrymoles]

*waves* - yep, oldest on our yard and definitely hack more than the others, bar my fieldmate who is my hacking companion. We have fairly limited hacking but usually manage a couple of hours on a Sunday and maybe an hour on a Saturday at this time of year.

Come the lighter evenings we will be out most nights and we have cunning plans this summer, involving hiring a box and heading for my old stamping ground which has much better hacking. I am saving whatever I can (which isn't much thanks to a massive tax bill) and we are both on diets to ensure our horses can carry us for hours...

I think the phrase "happy hacker" has become something of a put down in certain circles but as far as I am concerned, hacking out over a variety of terrain, including busy roads, at a variety of paces can be just as demanding as any other discipline.

I am currently schooling in the dark during the week but really only with the aim of keeping my horse fit enough to hack and ensuring he remembers how to leg yield, turn on the forehand etc for various hacking "situations" such as scary fallen trees and gates.

 

[MurphysMinder]

A lot of it is probably down to the fact that younger folk are just so used to having access to a school and have never known the fun of hacking. I have seen a post this week on facebook from someone asking how everyone was managing to ride when their schools were frozen ! I am from a generation that didn't have schools, we either did the schooling when hacking or in a corner of the field. I know it wouldn't happen nowadays for many reasons, but when I was around 10 (definitely still in primary school) a friend and I used to take sandwiches and go off for the day on our ponies in the summer holidays.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

when I used to be at a livery yard and occasionally still rode out with others, I was always stunned when they considered a 40m ride round the block, a hack. I would ride the block with them, drop them back and go out for a normal ride-we had fabulous hacking there but they were all welded to the school. I don't necessarily hack at great speed but I'll go through any country and I'll be gone for hours. Nicely schooled horses are nicer to hack and even when I had access to a school, I would school on hacks.

I think for those of use who are maybe 40 and over, we weren't bought up having an arena and were used to hacking all the time. I was hacking with friends and alone from age 13 on a rather whizzy TB X NF who wasn't great with tractors. I would get in trouble with parents in the summer holidays because I would go through sets of shoes in under 4 weeks.

To my mind, having a horse happy to go alone, well mannered enough to cope with awkward gates, mounting/dismounting, good with livestock and traffic, willing to tackle rough ground and ditches and schooled enough to give you a comfortable ride is something to aspire to rather than put down. Or maybe its just taken me a while to admit all I really want to do, is bomb around the countryside on my pony (literally a pony-I have a 13h Exmoor and a whopping 15.1 youngster lol)

 

[ribbons]

when I used to be at a livery yard and occasionally still rode out with others, I was always stunned when they considered a 40m ride round the block, a hack. I would ride the block with them, drop them back and go out for a normal ride-we had fabulous hacking there but they were all welded to the school. I don't necessarily hack at great speed but I'll go through any country and I'll be gone for hours. Nicely schooled horses are nicer to hack and even when I had access to a school, I would school on hacks.

I think for those of use who are maybe 40 and over, we weren't bought up having an arena and were used to hacking all the time. I was hacking with friends and alone from age 13 on a rather whizzy TB X NF who wasn't great with tractors. I would get in trouble with parents in the summer holidays because I would go through sets of shoes in under 4 weeks.

To my mind, having a horse happy to go alone, well mannered enough to cope with awkward gates, mounting/dismounting, good with livestock and traffic, willing to tackle rough ground and ditches and schooled enough to give you a comfortable ride is something to aspire to rather than put down. Or maybe its just taken me a while to admit all I really want to do, is bomb around the countryside on my pony (literally a pony-I have a 13h Exmoor and a whopping 15.1 youngster lol)

Couldn't have put it better.
I honestly believe a huge proportion of the problems people have with their horses, both health and temperament, would not exist if horses were ridden out regularly in the way they were in the past.

 

[bluewhippet]

Waves at all the other fast hackers! Burmilla, you can be another inspiration to me…my YO is one already.

I wasn't slating schooling in anyway. Just think it is funny that I behave like a teenager and the teenagers ride in a very sedate way.

And, I agree, the derogatory connotations of 'happy hacker' are entirely unjustified.

 

[madlady]

I'm 47 and a happy hacker. Me and my girl go for miles over the moors and will happily be out for 2-3 hours of a weekend. My 15yo nieces think I'm bonkers because we love nothing better than a good blast to clear the cobwebs away (they ride with me).

I too am planning a suicide hack this afternoon - my girl hasn't been out now for 2 weeks as we've been frozen in so I'm expecting her to be a bit forward but really can't wait to get her out in the sunshine

 

[MotherOfChickens]

Couldn't have put it better.
I honestly believe a huge proportion of the problems people have with their horses, both health and temperament, would not exist if horses were ridden out regularly in the way they were in the past.

inclined to agree-I also think a lot of leisure horses suffer from not being properly fit and then properly let down for a bit (without shoes which would help solve a lot of feet problems). Instead they are not very fit all of the time but then expected to work in a school.

I do understand that traffic etc is truly awful in some parts of the country and that turnout as I describe often not catered for but then, they aren't areas I would chose to live and have horses these days.

 

[northernnewfiediva]

My NF mare and I are 79 between us, and the whole point is to find grassy tracks/stubble fields etc to go very fast over! we call it 'extreme hacking' and I forget the number of young girls we have helped teach to stay on and go with it, round corners, up and down hills, over ditches and logs and generally having a blast!
Schooling definitely has its place and is very satisfying but it is not FUN and I am often laughing out loud on the pony, less so encouraging a perfect 20m circle or whatever.

 

[Pinkvboots]

I am 43 and have two Arabs so I would say I like speed, I often ride with a friend who is a few years older than me and we have very fun rides not so much galloping about as it would blow my horses brains if I galloped all the time but we do lots of trot and canter and we love it, I often like to have a bit of an amble around but love to have a fast busy ride nothing like it in my opinion.

 

[wiglet]

I guess it depends on the type of horse you have. My first girl loved hacking - the more extreme, the better. Not necessarily galloping everywhere but we both loved to go exploring, scrambling up banks, through gaps in hedges, across streams and shallow rivers. She never refused to go any where, nothing spooked her and other liveries loved riding with me as they knew their horses would gain confidence from my girl.

Sadly, she is no longer with me My new girl is not really a happy hacker - she'd done little hacking in her previous home - mainly dressage which is what I wanted her for. I do hack out, we have no school just a paddock so over winter, it's usually too muddy or too frosty/hard to use, so we hack most days.... I wouldn't describe it as fast hacking, but it is 'interesting'... not always for the good reasons Yesterday, after spooking at a log which had the devil hiding inside it, I came incredibly close to ice skating on the frozen fishing lake. Gulp. At least I can look back and laugh.... mostly

 

[Trules]

oh yes. can't beat a good gallop. my heart is in pretending to be a national hunt jockey on a race horse. my mare is mostly TB, so we do quite a good impression!. I event and really struggle to make myself do any dressage practice, but don't have any problems with the fitness work at all! lol!

 

[pip6]

I also think the term happy hacker is used as a derisory one. Many people think they must 'do' something with their horse. I remember one obnoxious lady arriving when I was a livery, asking me what I 'did', reply was endurance, to be told that was 'just hacking', and she 'did classical' (dressage). Never come across a person so scared to ride their horse, suspect the reason she chose it was she could go in the confines of an arena and spend her time perfecting a circle in walk. If hacking is so easy, why are so many so scared to do it (and I'm not talking a short walk around the block) on their so well schooled beasties? Keep hacking ladies and enjoying your mounts.

 

[lurcherlu]

I've always beena a happy hacker this is the first time in 25 years of riding I've been competing ,and that is a very low level occasional stuff , my horse is rising 5 and after hunting before xmas we turned her away fro three weeks whilst I had a holiday etc . She became a demon to hack and the girl that I was hacking with would pee off at gallop at every oppurtunity sending my horse into a rodeo horse . Last week I decided enough was enough took her onto a stubble field on a hill and kicked on as fast as I could she launched in the air then realised motheris back and is asking me to go as fast as I can , a few hops over hedges and ditches later and shed sorted herself out . Did the same ride with my best riding buddy today told her atthe bottoms the hills we would take off and my God was it fun racing ponies side by side my girl leapt in the air like a deranged llama lol and then off we went . T off steam and then they were both happy ploddy little ponies on the way home walking on a long rein all the way back horses need to run not just trotin circles IMO

 

[bluewhippet]

I like the term 'extreme hacking'.