Where do you go for a canter?

[holeymoley]

It seems as though we are coming across less and less places to canter, whether that be because land has been taken over or people are just ruining it, I don’t know. But where do you go for a canter? Obviously not in the throws of Winter with wet ground but when the ground is suitable? Not quite the season yet but it seems gone are the days of discreetly going for a canter round the perimeter of the stubble/hay fields ?

 

[stormox]

It seems as though we are coming across less and less places to canter, whether that be because land has been taken over or people are just ruining it, I don’t know. But where do you go for a canter? Obviously not in the throws of Winter with wet ground but when the ground is suitable? Not quite the season yet but it seems gone are the days of discreetly going for a canter round the perimeter of the stubble/hay fields ?

Any bridleway thats grassy or with going thats not too hard.
I dont think its ever been allowable to canter on fields, stubble or otherwise, without landowners permission.

 

[chocolategirl]

We’re very lucky to have our horses on a yard that is part of a 200 acre farm, so no shortage of flat and hilly ground to canter over ?

 

[w1bbler]

I've got the whole of dartmoor over the road from the yard ???

 

[milliepops]

used to pay for access to field margins, which included stubble fields when the time was right, though really it was only a couple of days before they were ploughed in.
then had forestry, now am next door to gallops.

 

[Keith_Beef]

We've got the Forêt de Saint Germain en Laye running between our town, the next one along, and all the way to Saint Germain en Laye. 35 square kilometres of forest with 80 km of ridable paths.

Most are shared with walkers and cyclists, but in some places there is a bridle path parallel to the pedestrian path.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

We have plenty of hills to canter up when the ground isn’t rock solid. In winter the gallops are the only place go.

 

[Cazza525]

I live on a Moorgate.....

 

[Michen]

Any bridleway thats grassy or with going thats not too hard.
I dont think its ever been allowable to canter on fields, stubble or otherwise, without landowners permission.

In Scotland- Right to Roam.

 

[Kat]

Our yard has some parkland that we can ride on depending a bit upon where the cows are. Other than that it is pretty limited, a green lane than is reasonably grassy and a couple of verges on very quiet lanes.

 

[Griffin]

We are lucky enough to have some good places to canter on local bridleways. However, we do have to do a couple of miles of roadwork to get to them.

 

[Snow Falcon]

Across the forest. So lucky to have the ponies here. ?

 

[ihatework]

Wide verges. Field margins. Gallops if the ground is bad

 

[dixie]

I’m in Devon and it’s not great where I am at the moment despite being very close to the moors. The road up to the moor is very busy so we pick quiet mornings otherwise stick to lanes and some woods, which are too stony to canter.

 

[scats]

Very lucky to have 40 acres onsite to play on, with plenty of long stretches for a blast.

 

[Wheels]

I only have roads to hack on with very little in the way of grass verges, no bridleways and surrounded by grumpy farmers who dont allow access to their fields.

So, I canter in the school, in my own field, hire the local XC place, go to the beach and hire one of the large local arenas.

At the moment as I am trying to improve canter fitness I'm at the beach once a week and then either hire the large local arena or XC course once a fortnight, expensive just to be able to canter but once hes fit I can maintain quite easily going out less than that

 

[Wishfilly]

It seems as though we are coming across less and less places to canter, whether that be because land has been taken over or people are just ruining it, I don’t know. But where do you go for a canter? Obviously not in the throws of Winter with wet ground but when the ground is suitable? Not quite the season yet but it seems gone are the days of discreetly going for a canter round the perimeter of the stubble/hay fields ?

We're lucky to have a few places on site to canter, otherwise we would be seriously limited, as the hacking around here is not great.

 

[DirectorFury]

The beach, the woods, the cliff tops, or the common! We’re spoilt for choice here - I actually live 20 miles/1hr (ish) drive from the yard and the only hacking close to home is busy roads or hardcore tracks which is why I’m happy to commute.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stubble field round here and wouldn’t want to go in one without permission.

 

[Abby-Lou]

I feel in the same boat, some areas are just too rutty to risk an injury on my normal ride. We have some wide verges so I gage if we are in a sensible mood for those, or there is an uphill grass verge on a bridleway track which is quite good

 

[iknowmyvalue]

Bridleways or beach

 

[silv]

I am fortunate to have permits to ride in some forestry block, one is just behind my house. Either that or have some lovely generous local landowners who allow me to access their properties,( farms or vineyards) or else a trip to the beach which is about 90 minutes away so not every week. In the summer though the ground tends to get very hard for cantering on. Can you ask local farmers? I have always been very generous with chocolates or beer to repay their kindness and been lucky to have been allowed on their places.

 

[holeymoley]

Any bridleway thats grassy or with going thats not too hard.
I dont think its ever been allowable to canter on fields, stubble or otherwise, without landowners permission.

Of course we had land owners permission. By discreetly I mean the odd canter whilst on a hack and not using it specifically as a racetrack.

 

[spotty_pony]

Any bridleways or in one of our fields. Also a lot of the lanes around us have very wide grass verges which are perfect for a canter on too.

 

[brighteyes]

The beach or my little field, that's it - unless we box up and go to a facility...

 

[holeymoley]

Gosh some of you have fantastic hacking! Unfortunately we are in the West so very wet and things do take a while to dry out, or they have cattle etc on them. The beach is about an hour or so’s drive away.

We had a lot of fields previously but the yard sold a lot of them off so now we are limited with what we can do on them(again weather and animal dependant). Our neighbouring fields have been fabulous for cantering (with permission I should add before people assume otherwise) but they are selling up so we may no longer have access.

 

[TheHairyOne]

I consider myself to be very lucky! We have 1-3 large fields directly off the yard, edges when the hay is growing and the lot 6 months of the year. This has some XC jumps in some of the fences lines/around the edge. Then the YO's other yard has 7 hay fields and more XC jumps and river and woods which is a 15 min hack. Then we have agreed access to another farmers field margins which is about a 20 min hack. Then we have miles of forestry tracks and a proper ford about a 40min quiet country lane hack. Along with a couple of decent bridle ways! Given how close we are to the M4 its amazing.

 

[SEL]

If i brave the mile each way on the roads then we have some bridlepaths crossing fields which are usually pretty good ground.

I used to ride over Cannock Chase and i really, really miss that since we relocated. Miles of off road hacking with long uphill firebreaks you could let off steam with a good gallop

 

[dogatemysalad]

We live in an area with very few bridleways. One is unusable most of the year due to being churned up by 4x4s, another has cattle and sheep grazing and leads on to a dual carriageway which is not safe to ride on.
One route leads to a nature reserve where the council insists that horse riders must stay in walk. There is one community park we can canter in which is a 30 minute ride away. It's lovely, but tends to be very popular with families, so when it's busy, cantering is a no no.

 

[Red-1]

Not much locally, although 2 farmers are OK with cantering in the stubble. However, we are on clay so stubble is not often suitable.

I mainly box out. I hire the gallops, go to a country park, a farm ride or a park ride. Three of the four also have XC jumps. I occasionally go to the beach too.

 

[MuddyMonster]

We've got lots of bridleways, tracks and fields as part of our hacking that I canter on.