Trail Riding Etiquette

Yeah, I have nice scratch on my face from a branch that someone popped me in the face with. Pretty annoying. :( But other than that my trail ride was very pleasant.

Great posting on trail ettiquette. But I do have to say this... those who take green horses on the trails are doing so at their own risk. I do agree that when other riders lack in steering etc. It is annoying. But it is going to happen when you have a group. And you will run into a group of galloping riders as well... be prepared. I remember about 9 years ago, I was on a ride with about 300 riders. My friend brought a very green horse, talking less than 10 rides. She had no business bringing that horse out to the ride. He was not ready. He was scared, she was scared... those of us riding around her were getting nervous, as the horse was getting quite worked up. She ended up leading her horse behind everyone for the last 4 hours. Even when riding in smaller groups, remember you will come up on more horses, please be sure YOUR horse is ready to be out there.

One more thing to add......NEVER leave your horse tied up unattended on one of these big rides. Make sure you really KNOW the people you are with and trust them to take care of your horse if you have to be absent for even a few minutes. I learned this the hard way...and it almost cost me my life. Someone DRUGGED my horse while I was away from the trailer for about 20 minutes. When he "woke up" 2 hrs later on top of the mountain he became frantic. He spooked, reared, galloped down the trail and threw me about 10ft in the air hitting two trees. I broke my spine, my hip, my pelvis, and fractured my neck on that ride. They found my horse eventually. He had a couple tiny scratches.

Know who you are riding with and don't let anyone give your horse ANYTHING you haven't approved of.

I don't ride with people I don't know any longer. It just takes one idiot.......

Great tips, these common courtesies make riding so much nicer!

My annoyance, riders who can't ride and who have horses that are ill-trained. They stop dead in front of you (usually putting riders in the back in a trick), and when you hit a four-lane wide spot and tell them you will be posting past, they have a fit as they are afraid they can't control their horse. I don't do large groups anymore.

This is such a great post. I would like to add another safety tip when trail riding. We were riding at huge equestrian trail place that had one place where you had to cross a four lane highway to get to a beautiful over look. On the way back to camp coming out of the woods to cross the road the group I was with did not wait for everyone to come out of the woods before crossing the road. I had to stop her for oncoming traffic and she came unglued. She could care less that a car was coming at 70 miles an hour she wanted to be on the other side. We were almost hit because she sidepassed and backed into the oncoming traffic. So my advice is wait for all your group and then everyone cross the road at the same time side by side. It will ensure that no one gets caught in traffic.

When we are crossing as a big group we usually go single file, but we have a 'guard' on each side of the line as lookout. They stop their horse in the middle of the road as the others cross, and will flag down any approaching traffic, and stay there until the last rider has crossed.

People with horses like that need to get that under control. Its one thing that the horse was likely a danger to its rider but the fact that it could become a danger to everyone else riding with her.

I hate it when people think its okay to run their horse by yours if the road is wide enough, that move could get someone very hurt and my friends horse has reared up and almost fallen off the trail because of this.

Great post!

I don't ride in a group anymore because the horse I ride is very competitive. Even when we're by ourselves I still have a time controlling him, but in a group, forget it. It makes the people I ride with uncomfortable, as well, because he has a reputation, so I just figured there was no point in messing up their rides as well as rubbing my nerves raw.

What makes me nervous is when the rider in front of you is nervous and keeps looking back at your horse and saying, "please keep him back, please keep him back" and I'm over a foot behind. But anyway :) For the most part I've had very good trail experiences.