On the Subject of Rude Riders

M

Mithras

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 July 2006
Messages
7,116
Location
The Brompton Road
Visit site
Whats the rudest rider you've ever encountered?

Mine has to be at a BS show this year, in the warm up for a Discovery. Madam squeezes round the outside of everyone including me to a practice jump, and I am still coming round, hence we have to take avoiding action. Madam then hisses at me viciously "Get out of my *******way". It was shouted so loudly and viciously that even though it was a BS show (which are actually pretty polite round here) that people nearby commented on it.

I wish I had complained to the stewards about her, as apparently she is well known for it!
 
wow.. I would have said something.

Nothing quite as bad as your encounter but I had a jumping lesson last week and there was someone riding in the arena, which was fair enough - it's a big arena. But then she started jumping the fences right behind where we were standing while my instructor was trying to explain someone to me. I thought that was pretty rude and it was extremely off-putting
 
I've had someone try and jump over me once when I was adjusting a fence in a warm up despite me shouting and asking if anyone was still jumping (their friends proceeded to point and glare and whisper at me )
 
Mine is an acquaintance. We'd try not to ride with her but she had this knack of inviting herself everywhere we went.

When I used to ride with her I had a 14hh Sec D and at 5'6" my legs would hang down quite a lot. We'd go to the beach and had to go through sand dunes to get there which had very narrow paths with high sides. She'd always put herself in front and would forget (or not care) that I would get stuck in them and just gallop off. I would have to stick my legs up in front of the saddle and hope for the best. No amount of shouting would stop her, she thought it was funny. Luckily my boy was pretty good and her horse didn't mind us careering up her backside if I wasn't in a decent position to stop him when she stopped.

The worst time was on the Badminton ride when another friend was with us and was struggling with her mare who had totally lost it - leaping, rearing and bolting. Instead of letting her go in front, tuck in behind us or generally do as she needed , she would just gallop off with no warning, or worse still hang back and go flying past her. When we had a go at her, she'd just say it was better to keep the mare moving than trying to make her go slowly - this after she had full on bolted 3 or 4 times and ended up a good 400 yards in front of us by the time my friend had stopped her (and we weren't hanging around trying to keep up.) After about an hour of this, my friend threw up and looked like she was going to pass out so I put her on my boy and led her horse (there was no way I was getting on her!) and I told the acquaintance to walk behind us or F off on her own...she F'ed off on her own.
 
Had the opposite scenario too (from a different rider, the one I describe enough actually strikes the fear of death into people, so well is her behaviour known). She had already jumped and was ambling round the practice arena in walk, I was waiting to go in and jump and doing a last practice jump. She was riding a stallion too, which makes her lack of observation even worse. Anyway, I tried to come to the practice jump, she ambled in front of it and I went round her and jumped it on an angle, nowhere near her. Cue a lot of indignant squalking from her, which I ignored. I then heard her bitching to the ring steward about "people cutting her up".

Generally I do ignore people like this at shows and get on with what I'm doing, as I don't like to let it disturb my concentration any further.
 
I help out at local shows quite a lot and when I am collecting-ring steward I frequently get people who hear me shouting a number, stare at me but don't respond in any way. Then when they turn round I realise that they are the person I've just been calling to go down to the start! Clearly I am meant to be telepathic. And the number of people who don't say thank you when you open and close the gate for them.....one woman was there with a bunch of kids all on the lead rein. I think I opened and closed the gate 16 times for her in all, and I got a muttered "thanks" on the very last one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top