What Do YOU Do When You Encounter an Equestrian on a Trail?

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by marciero

The article mentions the "side of the road" and "traffic laws" so it sounds like they were actually on a road.

Yeah, a bit more detail would have been useful.

I see horses on the road fairly frequently - either "hunt country" people out in Loudoun County, VA or Mennonites near Harrisonburg, VA. I give them room, but I assume the horse and rider are competent and used to riding with other road users (if not, they shouldn't be there).

Totally different than approaching a horse on single-track, which I see a few times/year here in Fairfax County, VA (almost all our trails are open to horses and bikes).

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by Alistair

or Mennonites near Harrisonburg, VA.

Hey, that's home!!! And good to see you mention them as Mennonites not Amish, a common mistake.

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Usually I curse to myself, then wonder why they never clean up their horses' excrement.

Well I know this is a useless point to make for many here but there really is not any health danger from horse poop and it's actually good for the environment.

"Horse manure is a solid waste excluded from federal EPA solid waste regulation because it neither contains significant amounts of hazardous chemicals, nor exhibits hazardous characteristics. The chemical constituents of horse manure are not toxic to humans."

Now that said, and this is coming from someone raised on a horse farm, it is a "pain" to encounter it on the trail in some ways.

[glepore]

Originally Posted by Alistair

Yeah, a bit more detail would have been useful.

I see horses on the road fairly frequently - either "hunt country" people out in Loudoun County, VA or Mennonites near Harrisonburg, VA. I give them room, but I assume the horse and rider are competent and used to riding with other road users (if not, they shouldn't be there).

Totally different than approaching a horse on single-track, which I see a few times/year here in Fairfax County, VA (almost all our trails are open to horses and bikes).

Long time rider of both horses and bikes here. The important thing to remember is that in the wild a horse is a prey animal and has a very well developed "fright or flight" response. While they have great (almost 360 degree) peripheral vision, they can't distinguish a moving but silent bike from a panther.

If approaching from the rear, PLEASE let the horse and rider know you're there. Talk. Say hi. Anything to identify you as human. Don't assume we know you're there. The horse will usually tense, but the rider may not know why. If the horse identifies you as a person, all's good. A seasoned rider will often turn the horse to face you if you speak out. The really bad spooks are almost always when a cyclist silently passes from behind. And yeah, Chris King hubs are bad for horses...

Same deal when approaching from the front-slow, speak out. If possible, stop til we pass.

I find that MTB'ers usually know trail priority and etiquette - the real risk is on narrowish singletrack when you can come suddenly around a corner and surprise everyone.

As to the riders on the road being more in control, well, maybe. Amish and Mennonite horses are one thing, they're in daily use as transportation. The rest of us, not so much. A stealthy pass is dangerous.

The comment that the rider hasn't trained the horse is not really fair. My horse is very traffic safe as far as horses go. But I've been hurt twice by another horse in the group spooking, leading to a mass bolt of all of the horses-remember, they think the last one gets eaten. You can ride out a full gallop bolt for only so far before you get unlucky and you either get thrown or worse, the horse passes a tree that it clears but you don't. Smacking a tree at 30 mph six feet in the air is more than unpleasant.

Poop is an issue. But you can't really dismount and clean it up-we don't carry shovels and its not easy to remount from the ground for some of us. Keep in mind though that horses aren't carnivores and their poop is much less of a gross health risk than other forms of poop.

Remember this when you're driving as well-slow and give the horse and rider time to assess and consider the sightline. Horses have difficulty seeing directly in front of them (weird, I know) so if approaching head on especially slow down.

[ghammer]

Happened to me many years back. I was doing a loop in a very ritzy area (Dover, MA), and there are plenty of horse farms there, as well as myriad winding country roads. I got yelled at badly by the rider who happened to be riding on the road in the opposite direction.The rider was unnecessarily rude, so I relented and let her pass. I did not know the rules then, which was disclosed when I chatted up a cop at the local convenience store. After that I had a few other encounters, which were easy as the riders weren't rude and I knew the rules. I basically stop and let them ride by. Spooking a horse can have horrendous consequences, so let's just be nice to each other and go on our merry way.

[dmitrik4]

^^^yep. It’s remarkable how much more smoothly things go when we all just make a little space for others.

Originally Posted by jamesdak

Well I know this is a useless point to make for many here but there really is not any health danger from horse poop and it's actually good for the environment.

"Horse manure is a solid waste excluded from federal EPA solid waste regulation because it neither contains significant amounts of hazardous chemicals, nor exhibits hazardous characteristics. The chemical constituents of horse manure are not toxic to humans."

Now that said, and this is coming from someone raised on a horse farm, it is a "pain" to encounter it on the trail in some ways.

^^this. It’s unpleasant but not harmful like dog poop

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by dmitrik4

^^this. It’s unpleasant but not harmful like dog poop

That's all well and good, but I have observed that the people who operate equestrian facilities around here do tend to shovel the horse poo out of the stalls and riding arenas. I just wish folks would treat public trails with the same care and respect that they treat their private property.

[Tickdoc]

I usually just whinny. Horses love it when you speak horse.

[glepore]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I usually just whinny. Horses love it when you speak horse.

[benb]

Around where I live if you encounter a horse it's probably a very wealthy person playing dress up and they are not in very good control of their horse and don't necessarily even know their horse well as they pay someone else to take care of it. So you better be really careful, and they are probably going to be A-holes to you. I think this is almost 100% where this whole thing comes from.

IME in more rural areas the equestrians are far more skilled and the difference is shocking. They have been polite, skilled, said I didn't need to stop, and were totally confident. I have seen people moving quite fast on their horses on fairly technical terrain and they have said no worries.

We just took a horse drawn carriage ride last week on vacation. Busy city, horses are/were completely unfazed by bikes, e-Bikes, cars, trucks, etc... it is all in the skill of the person training and managing the horses. We had some A-hole come up behind the carriage and lay on their horn at the horses for 30 seconds and the horses were completely unfazed.

Back when horses were used in place of cars obviously their were accidents and horses are big dangerous animals but people didn't have to be as cautious as we are expected to be around unskilled riders these days.

I still feel like horses are like motorcycles with a mind of their own and too many people don't respect how dangerous of an activity it can be.

Also from said vacation last week... I would way rather encounter horse poop on the trail than bear poop. Bear poop is way more gross.

[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Usually I curse to myself, then wonder why they never clean up their horses' excrement.

Difficult and unwieldy to carry a 13-gal plastic bag and a grain scoop on a horse....?

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by OtayBW

Difficult and unwieldy to carry a 13-gal plastic bag and a grain scoop on a horse....?

Don't horses in the city have poop bags tethered around their arse? Pretty sure I've seen that.

But whatever, we don't have enough horses here for poop to be a problem. Human **** has been a bigger problem (soccer tournaments near the trail, with insufficient porta-potty numbers).

[windsurfer]

Well in my last encounter I stopped, moved off the trail about 20' to stand behind a tree and still got yelled at an lectured about how I need to keep clear. I asked what else I should have done and her reply was to yell "stay out of my way" My response was that if I was a problem for her, she probably shouldn't be on that trail since there will be many more cyclists, all of which would be less accommodating.

...Hope she enjoyed the dozens of shuttle riders and emotorcycles she met on the Jesusita trail that Saturday.

[Tickdoc]

Originally Posted by benb

Around where I live if you encounter a horse it's probably a very wealthy person playing dress up and they are not in very good control of their horse and don't necessarily even know their horse well as they pay someone else to take care of it. So you better be really careful, and they are probably going to be A-holes to you. I think this is almost 100% where this whole thing comes from.

IME in more rural areas the equestrians are far more skilled and the difference is shocking. They have been polite, skilled, said I didn't need to stop, and were totally confident. I have seen people moving quite fast on their horses on fairly technical terrain and they have said no worries.

We just took a horse drawn carriage ride last week on vacation. Busy city, horses are/were completely unfazed by bikes, e-Bikes, cars, trucks, etc... it is all in the skill of the person training and managing the horses. We had some A-hole come up behind the carriage and lay on their horn at the horses for 30 seconds and the horses were completely unfazed.

Back when horses were used in place of cars obviously their were accidents and horses are big dangerous animals but people didn't have to be as cautious as we are expected to be around unskilled riders these days.

I still feel like horses are like motorcycles with a mind of their own and too many people don't respect how dangerous of an activity it can be.

Also from said vacation last week... I would way rather encounter horse poop on the trail than bear poop. Bear poop is way more gross.

Around here it's usually an overweight gal in cuttoff jean shorts smoking a marlboro or with a beer in hand. Her horse has seen and heard way worse **** than a cyclist whizzing by.

[SlowPokePete]

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