What a hack...

Jade&Syrah

Jade&Syrah

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Today my friend (who is another member on here) and I took my two girls for a quick hack, as the flies were getting to Hollie my thoroughbred. I was on Hollie and she was on Sy, both normally fine in traffic, however Hollie can still be a bit spooky as she's only 5, so I wore a young horse tabbard.

Going along, and she spooked and turned her backend into the road, this driver saw us and carried on driving, and she carried on spooking, so he ended up driving in the hedge then shook his head...

Then...

A tractor decided to come past, revving and speeding up... luckily they didn't spook at this, but was pretty peeved at the speed the tractor was going, we were signalling for him to slow down, and he looked at us and carried on.

Then to top it off...

A police car with blue flashing lights came speeding up past up (we were in single file, and the girls have never seen blue flashing lights speeding up to them) and Sy looked at something on the side of the road, swung her backend, then the noise of the car, made Hollie spook, spin and go backward, the car did an emergency stop, and the policemen just looked at us. Once I eventually got Hollie back on the side of the road we were ment to be on, I said sorry, thankyou and then they drove off..

Even though they were on a 'blue light' run, surely they should still stop when a horse is spooking.. don't know how we didn't get hit, however he did some pretty impressive stopping!

Hacking just seems to be getting too dangerous these days.
 
It is getting very silly, i had a car screech behind me yesterday, luckly my horse is good with these things, it did make him a bit uptight however, I have to say horsebox drivers are very considerate, she stopped in the road so not to spook my horse, ambulance drivers on the isle of man are very considerate also, i was out on a hack on my old loan horse and a friend, we could hear an ambulance coming up behind us, blues and sirens on, as soon as the ambulance saw us turned everything off drove past us wide and slow then when it was a safe distance away from us turned everything on again.
 
There was a thread recently re blue lights and police not long ago.

TBH sounds like your horse shouldnt be on the road if its going to spook. Difficult as it needs to learn. The first driver should have slowed down though & tractor. But I suppose thats the unexpected of hacking you meet some right plonkers.

I tried a pony recently who was deemed excellent in traffic and it went along with its butt stuck out and ur no not good for our road. Perhaps go along the same road nice and early when the traffic is so minimal to get your horse comfortable on the road.
 
It sounds like your horse is what made all of those situations dangerous!! Why do people always blame the drivers?!? You take a young spooky horse on the road, you need to accept the risks and consequences!!
 
Shame you had a bad time out on your hack, there is another thread on here about lack of understanding of drivers on the road, they see your signals, they ignore them, they see your horse prance in the road in front of them and still ignore them, mybe if they find the horse sitting in the seat next to them they might sit up and take notice.
I truely thank all drivers who are respectful of other road users.
 
Hang on, hang on, OP actually wrote 'both normally fine in traffic'. If it had been a nutcase that was going to go ballistic at every trembling leaf then maybe some criticism might be appropriate, but my borderline bombproof cob would have started to kick off after all three of those experiences. Sometimes we need other road users to cut us a little bit of slack.

Yes, OP, you had a bit of an interesting time there, didn't you? It's funny, I find some days you get lots of thoughtful, considerate drivers and some days those people just stayed home and let their evil twins take the cars out instead.
 
indie999 said:
TBH sounds like your horse shouldnt be on the road if its going to spook. Difficult as it needs to learn
Click to expand...

They've both hacked down a busy 'A' road without battering an eyelid, however I would never consider a 5 yo bombproof enough not to be spooky at little things. This seemed to just be a bad day.
 
Take care wearing a "YOUNG HORSE" tabard. The implication is that you know your horse is not safe in normal traffic and god forbid but if anything happened the courts could find you responsible for an accident.
 
Well where we are we get one extreme to the other most of mine are good in traffic but i am dreading taking my two newly backed ones out.
Today for instance i took my new proving to be spooky horse out i had very considerate people stopping to blasting past us this horse is however very good in traffic of all types.
We had quad bikes collies chasing us down the road and a contractor with a haylage baler bombing down the road behind us literally right up my bum luckily he is only scared of things you cant see but i dont know many horses who would not have been scared.
I sometimes find it is better to plonk yourself in the middle of the road so they cant speed past.
We are always polite to all drivers but sometimes even when they get to know you if the horse is sensible they seem to be worse as they assume its ok with however fast they drive.

Does anyone really need to be in that much of a hurry there could be a crash injured horse or even a child on the road just around the corner, its all very well to preach if your horse is perfect in traffic but someone has to give young horses their first experience so they can become good and this needs considerate drivers.
 
Box_Of_Frogs said:
Take care wearing a "YOUNG HORSE" tabard. The implication is that you know your horse is not safe in normal traffic and god forbid but if anything happened the courts could find you responsible for an accident.
Click to expand...

I will do, thankyou. :)

I simply wear them on the young horses at work or the horses we don't know what theyre like to hack at work (im getting one that says horse in training for this one) to do aware drivers that the horses are still infact young. And no young horse is 'bombproof' in my opinion :)

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