Capriole
Well-Known Member
Maybe you should tape off the footpath? Then they dont get to run wild and spread out and you can hopefully contain them to the bit they are actually allowed on and not running amok wherever they please.
Haven't read everyones post but I was told that it is illegal to use a Public FP after 9pm at night
I rang the council after my horses were terrifed by a bunch of hashers? or is it mashers? or something, anyway people who run / walk over the country side then meet at a pub and socialise. Nice enough lot of people but they appeared one evening at 8.30 ish all wearing high viz and marched over our fields, straying widely widely off the footpath straight towards my horses. The horses were terrified especially as some of them were running towards them, and went into a blind panic. I went out to catch them and ended up having to put myself in danger of getting hurt just to ensure none of their dogs or children got trampled.
The council told me that although it is a public footpath, where it is being used for an organised event, the organisers do have a duty of care to advise landowners. I think there was a maximum number of people that can join in a fun run / walk etc. without having to notify affected parties. I complained to the organiser of the run in a polite way, just explaining the shock to my animals and the potential danger to the children involved and sadly they were very defensive and quite unpleasant about the whole thing. The council however contacted them on my behalf and i haven't seen them using the same footpath again. I don't think its asking too much of these groups to give people a bit of warning then we can at least move the horses into stables or into another paddock for everyone's safefy.
The children would still have made noise etc. whether they had 'warned' you or not, just deal?
Do you realise these organisers are not paid a penny for their hard work? The work they do locally is fantastic.
If your stock cannot cope with noise on the footpath at any time of day / night you need to re think your fencing.
Breach of the peace indeed..... you could always have the lot of them arrested for it
I find it hard to believe that any children involved in guiding would not have seen a field before - it's 3/4 of what brownies / guides / scouts do.
Do you realise these organisers are not paid a penny for their hard work? The work they do locally is fantastic.
If your stock cannot cope with noise on the footpath at any time of day / night you need to re think your fencing.
You could also offer to go into the local groups and give talks about the country code for their 'out and about' badges.
Breach of the peace indeed..... you could always have the lot of them arrested for it
Hi AA
Contact them and ask to see a copy of their Risk Assesment from last night and how they are going to amend it after the Near Miss they had.
If you can't find them write to the Scouts HQ and get them to investigate for you .
Firstly, the breach of the peace comment did not come from me. Secondly I have no doubt the organisers are pillars of the community and I welcomed them onto my yard, despite the fact that there were already there in their car without prior notice. I put on all the spot lights and lit my paddocks for the walkers, I put on the cattleshed lights to aid their climb over the stile.
My entire property is fenced with post and rail with properly hung gates and as I mentioned in my previous comment my stock do not lift their heads when walkers cross the path in daylight.
If you wish to come along and teach my stock to cope with 150 noisy children passing within 10 feet of the cattle and directly with 2 horses at night you are very welcome, you evidently are more experienced then I. In addition a stabled horse became so agitated he has knocked the top of his eyelid off, and this is a older horse that has competed at most county shows and Hoys, he coped with brass bands, army gun salute, red arrows etc etc, but last night he was petrified.
Public footpath. So anyone can be on it. Maybe you should tape the mare and yearling away from the path if you don't want them stressd by passers by. The children would still have made noise etc. whether they had 'warned' you or not, just deal?
My horses aren't upset by groups of people/abnormal traffic. I suspect you being stressy wound the animals up. If your footpath passes within 10ft of cattle then your cattle should be used to passrs bu.. it was possibly all the additional lighting that got your animals wound up?
I'm not meaning to be rude, but I can't understand the fuss here. Fuss is probably not the right work.
Why would it not pass a risk assessment if the kids have head torches and the road crossings are manned? Our local scouts do things like that all the time, as do many of the groups that stay at the centre next door to us. We have an outdoor pursuit centre right next to our house and stables, and they run about screaming half the night. Our horses and the farm animals around the valley have never bothered at all. As we speak there are ten orange tents in the next field! The only ones that have ever bothered them, and even then it wasn't much, was the brass band camp!
I think that when you have footpaths running through your fields you have to be aware of what you turn out. I ended up fencing half my footpaths off from the main fields just to make sure that the horses can't get near all the kids trekking about. I was more worried about the two nosy youngsters fighting for the kid's attention..
I am really sorry for the trauma that your horses were put through. I bet they won't use your path next time, and would contact you if they did! I would think they had as big a scare as your horses!
My horses aren't upset by groups of people/abnormal traffic. I suspect you being stressy wound the animals up. If your footpath passes within 10ft of cattle then your cattle should be used to passrs bu.. it was possibly all the additional lighting that got your animals wound up?
Dolcé;10653697 said:The difference here is animals not being used to that sort of disturbance and panicking! When the animals are in flight then they are dangerous because they will run through rather than around an obstacle, be it a fence or a child! The people organising this 'ramble' will have had to do a risk assessment, the fact that they have not identified animals being in the field is a worry. The OP may have ended up being liable should there have been an injury but the organisers would have been held as partially responsible because they had not assessed the risk properly.
Just for the record, we have an older 100% horse that we use to babysit our youngsters on the road, the only thing in his life that has ever phased him, and he bolted, was passing a school playground when all the 'little people' came running towards him screaming and shouting.
To me this is just a big mess - nobody did anything particularly bad, it just was an unfortunate event.. Obviously it will be banned in future from everyone's reactions, which is a shame for the kids, but seems to be the way the world is going.
To be blunt back, my horses weren't used to the outdoor pursuit centre when they first came either! I did a risk assessment myself on my fields and fenced the paths off to prevent things like this occuring...and myself from being liable if it did. Anything could start something like this - a plastic bag blowing across the field could... You have to be prepared for things. You can't stipulate at what time people cross your fields, or how they're dressed, or what noise they make.. so its better to control it as much as you can, in my opininon. If I hadn't fenced my horses away from the footpaths that the outdoor pursuits centre uses I am 100% sure something would have happened that would have got me sued at some point - even with non-stressy horses...
To me this is just a big mess - nobody did anything particularly bad, it just was an unfortunate event.. Obviously it will be banned in future from everyone's reactions, which is a shame for the kids, but seems to be the way the world is going.
And had people broken in to the field and or chased the horses I would have been indignant for the OP. Now I feel sorry for what has happened to her horses, but don't think I would react the same myself. (Not being rude AA - just my opinion..)
I do find this forum curious at times. I read so many posts about modern health and safety gone mad and the good old days when as children we could romp about without saddles, children never do anything risky etc.
The suddenly it is all risk assessments, don't let children walk at night in the rain, ban anything sightly dangerous....
I would question what the point of this 'midnight ramble' was. It is my understanding that the scouting movement tries to teach about responsible behaviour as well as 'woodcraft' etc. This lot sound to have been an undisciplined rabble, not a properly supervised, organised group.
'after 36 years of keeping stock I and they take a fair bit of pressure to panic' adn yet you say they're still 'jumpy' tonight.. seems odd to me! If your stock are used to modern lights they'll not mind torches
'after 36 years of keeping stock I and they take a fair bit of pressure to panic' adn yet you say they're still 'jumpy' tonight.. seems odd to me! If your stock are used to modern lights they'll not mind torches