Strange things on hacks.....

pansymouse

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Riding on Salisbury Plain I can across a half acre-ish patch with an electric fence round it and neatly laminated sheets on the fence saying "Afghan Poppy Field".

Horse ignored it but I nearly fell off laughing.
 

Steorra

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Things my old horse spooked at while hacking:
Flat thistles
People walking on *his* bridleway
Invisible gremlins

Things he observed with intelligent interest:
A funfair being set up
7-a-side football
Low-flying helicopters

I accidentally took him to a car boot sale once. SO many people looking at us. I wished the ground would swallow me. He preened, ruffled the hair of small children, and generally thoroughly enjoyed himself.
 

YorksG

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I had forgotten about the lioness we used o pass on our first horse! In fine weather she would be lazing about on the flat roof of the garage, in less pleasant weather she would be on the window seat of the large window that was right by the roadside. The horse used to go past very very quietly :D
 

huskydamage

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wildlife related..lovely stuff like galloping behind a stag and with a massive owl flying above me. Seen a fox and cubs playing up close :)

weird people stuff - riding into quad bikes (including someone in a ditch with bike on them,asking me if I could put a rope around my horse and pull it off !) , someone riding a penny farthing (horse was appaled by this lol) , fireworks (in the daytime! why?) a bunch of people pulling a tractor along by hand, numerous couples ''doing it'' and one unfortunate individual who'd obviously thought the bridleway was a secluded place to drop pants and have a crap, guess they didn't bank on me riding past lol
 

Biglets Mummy

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Came across two pair of legs thrashing around behind some bushes with accompanying sounds of bliss. Friend and I started to cough loudly and make observations about how gorgeous the view was the other way. Legs stopped moving so we hacked on....until the penny dropped and I recognized the pair of Homer Simpson socks dangling off the hairier set of legs....Boyfriend ( and landowner of where we were hacking) having a little afternoon delight with his strumpet....Ex boyfriend by the time we got back to the yard.
Also and strangely enough it was on the same part of the ride my friend and I saw what we are still to this day convinced was a jaguar. It was a boiling hot afternoon , about 4 o clock and we were both gossiping on buckle ends as you do when the horses both stopped dead and just didn't move a muscle and their it was...just going into the hedge at the other side of the lane about 25 yards in front of us. Had the right size,coloring everything and we did report to the police,ended up in the local press and were gobsmacked by how many other people had seen " something" but were too afraid to report it incase people thought they had been on the gin !!
 

MCTM

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Years ago, exercising the point to pointers on the ranges when the fields were too frozen for fast work - we cantered up a sandy hill and came face to turret with a couple of tanks coming over the brow of the hill. I hadn't realised until then how fast tanks can go - luckily the horses were fit and fast too! We learned to take notice of the red flags after that....

Regularly meet army cadets etc on one of my hacks, either "hiding" in the bushes as somebody else has already said, or standing in plain sight relieving themselves (there are plenty of bushes around).
 

Sologirl

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Came across two pair of legs thrashing around behind some bushes with accompanying sounds of bliss. Friend and I started to cough loudly and make observations about how gorgeous the view was the other way. Legs stopped moving so we hacked on....until the penny dropped and I recognized the pair of Homer Simpson socks dangling off the hairier set of legs....Boyfriend ( and landowner of where we were hacking) having a little afternoon delight with his strumpet....Ex boyfriend by the time we got back to the yard.

:O Oh my gosh!!
 

Madam Min

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A dumped sofa with a rubber dingy on the top, my mare had a total meltdown.... understandably, not something you see all the time!!!!
 

littleshetland

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Came across two pair of legs thrashing around behind some bushes with accompanying sounds of bliss. Friend and I started to cough loudly and make observations about how gorgeous the view was the other way. Legs stopped moving so we hacked on....until the penny dropped and I recognized the pair of Homer Simpson socks dangling off the hairier set of legs....Boyfriend ( and landowner of where we were hacking) having a little afternoon delight with his strumpet....Ex boyfriend by the time we got back to the yard.
Also and strangely enough it was on the same part of the ride my friend and I saw what we are still to this day convinced was a jaguar. It was a boiling hot afternoon , about 4 o clock and we were both gossiping on buckle ends as you do when the horses both stopped dead and just didn't move a muscle and their it was...just going into the hedge at the other side of the lane about 25 yards in front of us. Had the right size,coloring everything and we did report to the police,ended up in the local press and were gobsmacked by how many other people had seen " something" but were too afraid to report it incase people thought they had been on the gin !!

Oh Yes - this reminded me - there were sightings of a big cat around our way for ages - I didn't take much notice until , out hacking, came across a large deer with its' throat ripped out and half eaten. Some days later, we found a lone sheep strayed into our paddock (in a right old pickle) with what looked scarily like claw marks on its flanks.
 

Pilib

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We live near a little wildlife park, so I hack past tigers, snow leopards and huge storks.
(My horses field also runs right alongside the gibbon enclosure, so we can see them swinging about and hear their calls!)
Out hacking I have come across a homeless man having a snooze in the hedge. My hacking companion later took him some buns she'd baked and some bottled water which he refused as he had cider!
 

Jenny Wrenny

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I see a lot of weasels, foxes, swans, a dead barn owl and a dead ferret - all the usual stuff but one day on one of my regular rides my mare became very unsettled as we were passing a row of bushes/trees and really didn't want to go past which is most unlike her. I called and asked if there was anyone in the bush :) and out popped a man with a smile on his face!! He said he thought his red jumper was scaring my horse - never mind the red jumper, it was the wierdo lurking in the bush that frightened her! Rather alarmingly I have since been walking my dogs past the same bush and an elderly couple (one sporting a rucksack) were in it and my friend also found a man lurking in the same said bush! Maybe i'm missing something and the bush has something to offer?!
 

ironhorse

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When I was rehabbing a hunter from a suspensory ligament injury we met everything. He was terrible in traffic so I was always accompanied by my OH on a dressage horse that was rock steady in the heaviest traffic but had not hacked much off-road... a man herding six enormous tups towards us (both horses turned and legged it) a woman long reining an enormous warmblood who appeared suddenly out of her drive (ditto) six pygmy goats that jumped onto the roof of their shed as we walked past (dressage horse legged it in piaffe which husband had never experienced and was totally freaked out by, hunter stood and looked at them).. oh and one day we trotted up behind a parade of traction engines. There was nothing for it but to wait in a gateway until they'd got ahead of us a bit and then walk slowly back. Neither horse would go past them :D
 

Spotsrock

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The entire easter egg motor bike run just as b1 and I hacked up the short bit of overtaking lane between yard and great hacks. Small grass verge so we centered along with them all waving to us and passengers trying to take pics of b1 and about 10000 bikes! she loved it, im tempted to ask if we can join properly next year!
 

Gleeful Imp

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Two tiny kittens small enough to both fit in my buttoned show jacket (we were hacking to the local show) - poor mites were abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Lived with me for 17 years - loved em to bits.

Have also encountered a wild mattress, burnt out car, weeing men, a helicopter landing on the other side of the hedge, some sort of hovver go cart (very odd) - but finding my little Dillycat and Zeb was the best :)
 

lhotse

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I have met a steam engine, many a car blocking a bridleway with illicit affairs going on inside, what I am convinced was a puma, and all sorts of other wildlife. However, I cannot top what my friends saw one morning out hacking.

Wondering why the cows in the field seemed a bit unsettled, they peered over the hedge to be met with a man running around stark ******* naked, calling out that the 'cows were his friends'!! Poor cows!! The same man was arrested and sectioned a few months later for trying the same gag in the supermarket carpark!!

ETA, I rode through a set of Casualty once too!! Saw Josh the paramedic!
 
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Pearlsasinger

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We got caught in the middle of a charity bed-push once!

The horse thought it was great but were very cross when we turned left at the first opportunity, while the beds turned right. They didn't see why they couldn't go and get the applause they could hear just round the corner.
 

Sukistokes2

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Two tiny kittens small enough to both fit in my buttoned show jacket (we were hacking to the local show) - poor mites were abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Lived with me for 17 years - loved em to bits.

Have also encountered a wild mattress, burnt out car, weeing men, a helicopter landing on the other side of the hedge, some sort of hovver go cart (very odd) - but finding my little Dillycat and Zeb was the best :)

**like****
 

Spilletta

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Wow - some amazing stories here! Can't imagine finding a body, think I'd go into meltdown quicker than my mare would. Her biggest fear is canal boats. Think it's the way they slink past in silence. Low-flying Chinook (spelling?) directly overhead is fine, though, as is big bird of prey taking off from fence post right in front of her.

Did have a baby rabbit run in front of us during a canter but she jumped over it so no harm done. During another canter, I spotted a deer about to run out and thought I'd better get ready to sit a sideways leap but she was fine and seemed keen to follow it.

Anyway, main point of my post is to say lovely to hear of the animal rescues (not lovely that the animals were put in the position of needing rescuing but hope you know what I mean.) Sometimes I despair of humans but you lot are great!
 

Dave's Mam

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Wow - some amazing stories here! Can't imagine finding a body, think I'd go into meltdown quicker than my mare would. Her biggest fear is canal boats. Think it's the way they slink past in silence. Low-flying Chinook (spelling?) directly overhead is fine, though, as is big bird of prey taking off from fence post right in front of her.

Did have a baby rabbit run in front of us during a canter but she jumped over it so no harm done. During another canter, I spotted a deer about to run out and thought I'd better get ready to sit a sideways leap but she was fine and seemed keen to follow it.

Anyway, main point of my post is to say lovely to hear of the animal rescues (not lovely that the animals were put in the position of needing rescuing but hope you know what I mean.) Sometimes I despair of humans but you lot are great!

Camilla hate boats too! She took the bagpiper a lot calmer than a barge. We ride on the banks of the Trent, so just have to live with it!
 

Spilletta

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Camilla hate boats too! She took the bagpiper a lot calmer than a barge. We ride on the banks of the Trent, so just have to live with it!

I ran along several miles of the Trent to while away the hours when my husband was doing the Outlaw triathlon one year: very lovely it was too. Is Camilla getting better with the barges? Canal boat people must think me and my sideways dancing, snorting beastie are mad. De-sensitising is taking some time...
 

Lipza767

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I see a lot of weasels, foxes, swans, a dead barn owl and a dead ferret - all the usual stuff but one day on one of my regular rides my mare became very unsettled as we were passing a row of bushes/trees and really didn't want to go past which is most unlike her. I called and asked if there was anyone in the bush :) and out popped a man with a smile on his face!! He said he thought his red jumper was scaring my horse - never mind the red jumper, it was the wierdo lurking in the bush that frightened her! Rather alarmingly I have since been walking my dogs past the same bush and an elderly couple (one sporting a rucksack) were in it and my friend also found a man lurking in the same said bush! Maybe i'm missing something and the bush has something to offer?!

Arh they were probably geocaching!
 

Dave's Mam

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I ran along several miles of the Trent to while away the hours when my husband was doing the Outlaw triathlon one year: very lovely it was too. Is Camilla getting better with the barges? Canal boat people must think me and my sideways dancing, snorting beastie are mad. De-sensitising is taking some time...

Erm, no. She's 22 & very set in her little ways. I'll hopefully get more river riding next spring & summer, now I have developed some guts, so we shall see!
 

fatpiggy

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Got flashed at,on a main road, and then chased down it by the flasher who was obviously not impressed when I implied I couldn't see his prize possession!

A friend of mine got flashed at once while she was walking her dog. She told the man he should be ashamed of himself because she had bigger worms in her garden!
 
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