Encountering snakes on the trail!

Hiya. I was having a bareback ride on Sienna today. I was singing loudly and pointing at the sky when Sienna shuffles sideways off the trail. I look down and see a BIG SHINY BLACK SNAKE disappear into the long grass. OMG!!!

I've got other similar stories about my reawakened sense of the power of nature thanks to riding in the Australian bush. Anyone else experience snakes on the trail?

I have only seen a snake once on the trails and I was riding sammy who took a wide path around it, we paused and watched it slither away into the long grass and bushes. I only saw the tail end of but it was pretty thick so it must have been pretty long and it was a red belly black. I had a shiver go up my spine as we rode away lol.

We see snakes on the trail all the time mostly rattlers. We give the a wide berth if we can and always have snake bite kit in the saddle bags
I got thrown a few years ago because a rattler didn't let me know he was there until I was right on top of him. Fortunately, neither me or my horse got bitten.
I hate snakes.

All the time. Different types, some poisonous. Got bit when I was six by a copperhead. Just give them a little space and they'll move off. They (pit vipers like rattlesnakes) can only strike less than the length of their body, so if you say 10' away you are totally safe. My mare is scared of most, and often thinks branches across trail is another snake.

Lots of people will kill them on sight, particularly rattlers. Unless you are close to home, around children, etc. I strongly don't recommend that. 1) they are a part of the ecosystem; 2) if you kill the ones that rattle and move, you select for quiet ones you don't see until bitten. Here in the urban border of southern Cal, most rattlers will not rattle when scared because selection pressure has removed the "early rattlers."

We run into the occassional Rattler and a few other non-venomous snakes. But we don't see a lot of the because of the elevations we ride at. When I ride in the desert, it usually winter and spring and the snakes are holed up that time of year.

The 2-3 times a year I come across a rattler, I just give it room to slither off.

A funny story, One day we were really booking down the trail, A rattler was laid out sunning on the trail, as we roared by, It attemped to curl up from it's stretched out position. The horse and I both saw at as it started to coil up, but we were already on top of it. It got wrapped around the horses hind leg and as the leg came forward, It got whipped about 15 feet out ahead of us. Of course , we were way past it by time it recovered from being thrown.

Actually, yes. I was riding Noah (his first trail ride, too! X.x) just a month or two ago- also singing (ironic...maybe snakes like music! Lol), when all of a sudden he crowhops in the air and spins. I look down to see a three and a half (they usually don't get that big) foot long Coral snake bunched in the middle of the trail! Scared the crap out of both of us! Haha.

We have a huge problem with both Coral anakes and Copperheads. We once found a six foot long snake under our deck...right where a bunch of little kids were playing!

I have what we call valley horses, rattlers are rare in the valley. When we happen to run across rattlers in central/eastern part of the state my horses don't have a clue what that rattling means. They would walk right over the snakes without a second thought if I didn't steer them away. To them it's just another snake that will slither out of the way when approached.

I know one snaake story,
We were having a gymkhana at my riding club so there was about 20 people riding, give or take. Three quarters were little kids on ponies while a quarter were teenagers. Anyway I was in the dressage arena with the other teens and the little kids were in the sporting arena when a snake began to make his way through the sporting arena. All the little kids were trotting and cantering around and none of the little kids saw it so they nearly trodded on it but then it slithered out of their into our arena. And it was a king brown and because the little kids would be sleeping there the night my riding instructor at the time grabbed a shovel and made it a head-less snake.

Ooooh all this is creepy, that's one thing that makes me so glad I live in New Zealand... We don't have snakes, or even big spiders (that I know of) or anything much else that can cause harm haha

I don't know how you all cope I would be a nervous wreck

"I'm tired of these motherf***ing snakes on my motherf***ing trail!!"

For all those who know about Snakes on a Plane, it had to be done.