Use of the horn - equestrian presence?

Oddball · Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 63 Location: West Wilts

Hi all,

Coming back through the country lanes on the way back from school the other day (isn't it great taking the long way home?) I saw some horse riders in the road. Fine, I thought, and did the usual slow down, move wide around the horses etc. etc. No problems there.

Now, on this particular country road, there are a few places where I use the horn. One is a hoofing great hairpin bend on a narrow piece of road, hedges on either side, impossible to see around. I give a few toots before entering to warn anyone coming the other way. The other is a humpback sort-of bridge where no road is visible - shortly after the bridge there's a left hand bend, again with hedges on either side. I give a few toots before that one too, to warn others of my presence.

And it made me think about what might have happened if those horses mentioned earlier were just out of my view - out of sight but still in range to be alarmed by my horn? It'd be silly to slow down to move around horses, only to scare them on another occassion.

So how is this avoided (if at all)? Is it a risk we have to take? What clues can we pick up? In the summer months there's more likely to be horse riders in the road, and I thought this might be a good time to address the issue.

Any thoughts?

Oddie

Lynne · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 249 Location: Essex

YES!

Please don't make us jump. I think this too ..using the horn does have drawbacks in areas frequented by riders.

Even if you don't make the horse jump if you make the rider jump the horse can pick up on the tension and get nervy.
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ADI
RoADAR (Gold), RoSPA Diploma, Fleet Registered

Thankyou for being courteous to horses and riders Smile

Why_Aye

Oddball · Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 63 Location: West Wilts

Right, excellent. Sounds like some good advice there. Smile

I'd never thought about it until I saw some horse riders down there the other day (you may have guessed, correctly, that I'm not a horse rider Wink

).

Why_Aye · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject:

Porker · Joined: 04 Feb 2006 Posts: 422 Location: Essex

A couple of additional thoughts to throw into the mix.

i) I believe, though I'm not certain why, that a short toot or two is less frightening for a horse and for pedestrians generally than a longer blast of the horn.

ii) It's not my speed I am worried about in areas where I'm unsighted. It's the speed of the one towards - that's whom the audible signal is for.

P.

7db · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 1691 Location: London

I'm in two minds about the blind toot.

I'm not sure that I really believe that anyone will hear it and toot back, and I certainly can't rely on it. My approach is still the same, toot or not. There is a chance, however, that it might help a hidden pedestrian, to throw themselves off the bridge before I come barrelling over.

On the cost side, it must be annoying as anything for the people who live near hump-back bridges etc to have tooting all the time, and there is the chance of startling a horse, grandmother or other easily startled road-user.

jont · Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 750 Location: Bristol

Lynne · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 249 Location: Essex

We always try and trot around bends. We are still at the mercy of drivers who still try and overtake on bends.

If I hear oncoming traffic before I get to a bend I hold back until they've passed. I will sometimes go out into the road so I'm seen sooner, before driver start to speed up coming out of the bend. I go out into the road to slow traffic if necessary (another forum has me recounting my near death experience last Saturday by an oncoming Co-Op arctic.. another story)

The worst thing I think is when we ask traffic to slow or hold back for a minute. What's usually happened is we've seen something in the hedgerows/side of the road that will potentially spook horse and they'll step sideways. It might only be a piece of paper blowing in the breeze. Drivers don't understand and sometimes still insist on driving past with no space, then wonder why our horses start to sit on their bonnets.

Lynne
_________________
ADI
RoADAR (Gold), RoSPA Diploma, Fleet Registered

Thankyou for being courteous to horses and riders Smile

Oddball · Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 63 Location: West Wilts

michael769 · Joined: 17 Sep 2007 Posts: 166 Location: Livingston

Darren · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject:

Hi all,

I agree with alot of what Lynne says. Since meeting my now fiancé I've had lots of lessons. She has two horses so we thought it would be a good idea if I got some experience of dealing with them, of course your never going to know if a situation should arise that I have to work with them because for whatever reason she can't iygwim.

Her horse is a well bread dressage horse. It gets scared / upset by plastic bags, tin foil, rustling leaves and basically anything it doesn't understand - which is pretty much everything. Wheels on my mountain bike are not good at the moment. A car horn very close to it would be probably one of the worst things I can imagine if she was on the horse at the time as it would be very likely to rear or spin and no matter how good her balance is, would probably result in her being on the floor.

When you drive past someone on a horse you never know how desensitised they are to traffic or how competent the rider is, so I would advise assume the horse is on a suicide mission and assume the rider has never sat on a horse in their life (pretty much similar technique to what I do with most drivers I come across Smile

)

The good lady is an excellent rider, competes regularly and can read her horse very well and has excellent control, but I have also seen her dumped on the floor because the horse spun 180 degree's because it didn't like the colour of the floor.

I've never been into horses but the last year or so I've learned a huge amount and the easiest way I can put it is they are the most paranoid animals you are ever likely to meet. Everything scares them and is a big issue.

As Lynne says, they get their confidence from the rider in general, but sometimes they just do as they please - ultimately, if you fight them, they will win.

Here's some pics

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Darren Tipton
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ScoobyChris · Joined: 01 May 2006 Posts: 1033 Location: Andover, Hants

Darren · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:24 pm Post subject:

hardboiled · Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 199

I too discovered after talking with a girlfriend about her horse that they are quite unpredictable animals. Hearing about something that's 6 feet tall and probably heading to a quarter of a ton being scared of a twig in the road did make me thing about passing horse and rider (not that I did anything silly past them in the first place). Another piece of advice she gave was to go as wide as possible around the horse as it's possible if spooked that they will suddenly jump 6 foot in any direction!