Odd choice...

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GirlFriday

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I saw this online last night but didn't read the article and figured that they had been hit by a car or something!

It does seem a slightly odd choice, I'm sure she didn't mean to cause any harm but saying she 'wasn't too worried' about her out of control horse going towards a main road isn't a great statement from a figurehead.

I wonder what happened to the other pony...?

It's great she's trying to make people more aware of how to safely pass horses but her incident and cars passing safely are completely unrelated...
 
Rather bizarre, her "experience" is more likely to encourage car drivers to campaign to get riders off the road, it appears the pony bolted while on a bridleway so was not caused by a vehicle, to then not be able to control her own horse is hardly the "fault" of any poor driving and unrelated to the campaign.
I think she needs to be very careful about her statement in general as if she ever caused another accident in a similar way it could well be her being sued by the drivers involved, her comment that she "stressed that the driver involved in her accident was not at fault" is obviously true, it is her that was "at fault" in this case, I hope the poor driver has recovered from what must have been a horrific shock and that they did get full compensation from the riders insurance company.
 
There are quite a lot of campaigns to get drivers to slow down when passing horses. This one seems a bit at odds as it was a horse bolting onto a road that was hit by a car rather than someone driving to fast and hitting them. Either way a sad accident but I think more impact would be made with a proper example of it happening. Lets face it no matter how slow a driver was going if a horse suddenly appears in front of them they will probably hit it.

What I want to see thou, are campaigns to get more access to off road riding. I know space is limited but changing some footpaths will help a lot. There is a bridleway near me that stops on a main A road, if I want to get back to the yard I have to ride along that road for 10 mins or turn around and go back the way I came for another hour. There is a footpath that we are trying to get changed that goes right next to the yard, it would get us off the road (not that I do, I go back the way we came) and will encourage riders to actually use the bridleway.

As a driver I would rather not meet lots of horses, I understand that they are unpredictable so act accordingly but 95% of the population don't and would rather we weren't there. As a rider I would rather not be on the road at all but most riders do not had access to miles and miles of off road bridleways and have to go on the road to get to what they can.
More bridleways are a win win for everyone, riders have more places to go and we are not on the roads being a potential hazard (and lets face it with that is what we are, possibly not a popular opinion thou)
 
Very odd choice indeed .
Head up a campaign to raise rider awareness about learning to ride better and train horses better perhaps but driver awareness no.

This sort of thing makes me cross .
 
What happened to trying not to let go of your reins?! Tbh the woman is an idiot fir heading this campaign, fine campaign for safety but don't use this story anywhere in the campaign!

I'm all for more off road hacking though, I'm sure there must be miles of little used footpaths that could be made into horse permissible paths?
 
This is not the way to get motorists on side at all, I am shocked an surprised that H&H allowed this to be used in this way, there are more than enough accidents/incidents where the drivers are at fault, to use for this type of campaign.
 
ester said:
Meanwhile someone is getting slated on H+H facebook for suggesting that she was in the wrong!
Click to expand...

Every commentor who is saying the rider was an idiot is getting slated. People commenting 'the horse BOLTED there's nothing you can do'...
 
vam said:
There are quite a lot of campaigns to get drivers to slow down when passing horses. This one seems a bit at odds as it was a horse bolting onto a road that was hit by a car rather than someone driving to fast and hitting them. Either way a sad accident but I think more impact would be made with a proper example of it happening. Lets face it no matter how slow a driver was going if a horse suddenly appears in front of them they will probably hit it.

What I want to see thou, are campaigns to get more access to off road riding. I know space is limited but changing some footpaths will help a lot. There is a bridleway near me that stops on a main A road, if I want to get back to the yard I have to ride along that road for 10 mins or turn around and go back the way I came for another hour. There is a footpath that we are trying to get changed that goes right next to the yard, it would get us off the road (not that I do, I go back the way we came) and will encourage riders to actually use the bridleway.

As a driver I would rather not meet lots of horses, I understand that they are unpredictable so act accordingly but 95% of the population don't and would rather we weren't there. As a rider I would rather not be on the road at all but most riders do not had access to miles and miles of off road bridleways and have to go on the road to get to what they can.
More bridleways are a win win for everyone, riders have more places to go and we are not on the roads being a potential hazard (and lets face it with that is what we are, possibly not a popular opinion thou)
Click to expand...

I would love this but I have to ride on a (mad race track) country lane to get anywhere, I have a wood on my doorstep but can no longer ride anywhere up there due to the council saying that horses were destroying the foot paths (when horses actually kept them clear) BUT they don't mind the ruddy motorbikes going up there :mad:
 
Amye said:
Every commentor who is saying the rider was an idiot is getting slated. People commenting 'the horse BOLTED there's nothing you can do'...
Click to expand...

Did it bolt? Or did she just leave it too late to do an emergency stop?

“I wasn’t too worried but then Max seemed to get faster and faster. I had no control, we were coming to the main road, and I just had to make the decision to get off."
Click to expand...

I can't ever imagine a scenario where I'd make a conscious decision to bail out, leaving my horse and unfortunate drivers to their fate.
 
9tails said:
Did it bolt? Or did she just leave it too late to do an emergency stop?



I can't ever imagine a scenario where I'd make a conscious decision to bail out, leaving my horse and unfortunate drivers to their fate.
Click to expand...


According to the article the other pony bolted and her horse thought 'i'm going too'.... So her horse followed the other, doesn't say it bolted too! There is no mention of the other pony in the article so i'm assuming they must have been able to stop???

That quote you mentioned makes it seem like she wasn't bothered at first that the horse was going, and didn't pull it up straight away, only when she got closer to danger did she bail out. I would've thought she would have said 'i was trying to stop him in any way but couldn't' but nothing like that is really mentioned.....

ETA: I guess no one knows exactly what happened but the people involved but it hasn't been portrayed very well and I don't think the rider has come across well either.
 
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