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so over idiots in fast cars right now..

2K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  blue eyed pony 
#1 ·
Uh. Yeah. Long story short I took the filly out for a walk this afternoon. All was well, she was being fantastic and barely reacting to the cars passing. Stopped to chat to someone, and she stood nicely, very patient and respectful. UNTIL.

Some tool in a big expensive V8 came past. I mean he wasn't going ridiculously fast or anything but that engine was LOUD. Satin freaked, knocked me over, hit the end of the rope, and settled. I got up quick and made her go sideways fast so she didn't learn she could barge me... I couldn't care less if she's scared, she is GOING to stay out of my space! Anyway. Idiot saw me, could hear him laughing.

Satin relaxed and settled well and stood nicely and all was good, so when I finished chatting, we continued on our way, and then headed home. On the way back, idiot passed again, a little faster, a little closer, and a LOT louder. She didn't react as much but she still stepped on my foot! Pushed her sideways again and gave idiot the finger... his windows were up so there was no point in yelling at him what I wanted to, and there were kids around anyway.

He SAW her push me over and thank goodness I'd moved off the road onto the grass verge to chat to someone when she did or I'd be hurting right now. And it's not like she looks like a sensible adult horse, she is a BABY, she LOOKS like a baby (non-horsey people always say "what a cute foal" so no way does she look like an adult), he could CLEARLY see BOTH of us. And then he went and tried to spook her again.

SO MAD. :evil:

On the plus side, she's only 13.2hh at the moment, so she's not too bad of a size to be having massive panic attacks... it's a good opportunity to gentle her to traffic while she's still relatively small and light. But WHY is it so hard for them to understand that horses are dangerous?

...I should let THEM handle her while I drive their car past just loud enough to make her fidget. Maybe rev the engine if they're still not getting the picture. :evil::evil::evil:

I remember the number plate sooo clearly. Is there anything I can do that'll teach them some respect? Or should I get over it and get on with the task of making sure that nothing anybody does with a car (or trailbike) is going to bother my girl? Sigh.
 
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#2 ·
Oh jeez, I might have raged SOOO HARD! That's just cruel for someone to do, and I have my own experiences with it!!

On the way to where the good trails are (backwoods farmer lands), Indie and I HAVE to ride on a road... this road is really wide and open with the occasional hills, and people just love to fly down it. We were on a flat riding as far to the side as we could, and some idiot who I know saw us, actually merged into the wrong lain so he could get closer to my horse, and started pressing on his horn.... freaked me out the dude was actually GLARING At us! I don't even know what it was all about... poor Indie was scared half out of her mind. I think we both were.

And just last summer, some hicks in a monster truck-wanna be came blaring down the SAME road. the engine was so loud, but we heard it coming and were okay... but these guys actually sped up as they started past us and turned their radio all the way up AND started honking.

The best part?

Indie didn't flinch that time. Just stood there like "idiots."

Both times I wanted to report them in, it's a small place and I could find them pretty easily.... but I just let it go. Really no point in making such a**holes even bigger ones.
 
#3 · (Edited)
I don't want to sound heartless, but get over it and get on with despooking her to EVERYTHING you can find. Words on a post on the Internet always sound so harsh and that's not how I mean this to come across.

Basically, we as horse folk have no rights anymore. Back in the day when everyone used horses for transportation there were laws protecting them from idiots like this but today that's pretty much all out the window.

I used to live on a fairly busy street with lots of kids, so my horses were exposed to traffic and motor bikes, bicycles and quads, constantly. Whenever one of the kids would zoooom past and scare someone, I'd get them to come in to the arena and park and let the horses get used to the vehicle. Once that was ok, then I'd have them start it up and then rev it and pretty soon, drive around very slowly while the horses checked it out.

It accomplished a couple of things. The horses got desensitized, the kids with the motors got educated by participating in the process and we all became friends and so it kept my blood pressure down because I no longer worried about the vehicles and the horses. Where I used to live in CA, the desert was right out my back door and kids with dirt bikes were always racing around back there. It was really nice to know that I wasn't going to get killed by a spooking horse when one would come up over a rise and just 'POP' into existance, because the horse was used to the sights and souds.

LOL, and my husband is a flight nurse for a medical flight service, so the horses get 'buzzed' by the helicopters and planes a lot too! They really don't care about much anymore, including fireworks.
 
#4 ·
in my area just having the plate number and reporting that he was not giving respect to a horse on road = fine but talk to an officer and see what they say.
as a pedestrian on the road whether biker, runner, or horse rider, horse walker, you have the right of away and people in cars are suppose to slow down and wait for you to acknowledge them to pass.
i hope you are ok! and hope the little one gets over cars and vehicles so it doesn't happen again.
 
#5 ·
She's actually a pretty chilled little horse so it amazed me that she got a big enough fright that she knocked me over. She has never had that big of a reaction to anything that her training has gone out the window. EVER. I guess I'm blessed that enough vestiges of respect remained that she didn't step on me... I would've been hurt if she had. That's what I'm most mad about. People need to realise that horses are dangerous animals.

I think I will give the number plate to the police and explain. We DO have laws here in aus that protect bicycle riders/horse riders/pedestrians (and a horse walker counts as a pedestrian). I have witnesses but I don't know if that's proof enough for them to be able to do anything... it's not like the police can arrest someone just because somebody said that their car scared a horse. If I can get into town tomorrow I will talk to the police and see.

Normally it doesn't really bother me what people do with their cars but when it's big enough to frighten my horse so much she knocks me down, it's not something I can overlook. She is fine with quiet cars going past quickly but not loud V8s. People who are going to have a noisy car like that should consider how their noise affects everyone else.

This coming from someone who dreams of owning a Lamborghini (probably never going to happen but hey, I can dream) so trust me I have NOTHING against loud cars, as long as the drivers have two brain cells to rub together!

Nevertheless, the more things she's quiet about, the easier she'll be to break to saddle when she's old enough. She's been learning about the physical, transitions and canter leads, voice commands, basic laterals, that sort of thing... but I guess I've been forgetting about despooking her. Plastic bags tomorrow, I think, tarpaulins after that, and maybe my loud body clippers later. I have a few other ideas, of course, but those are the three main ones.

She was on the whole very good today, better than I expected. Been a couple of months since I've taken her for a walk out (been working on things at home) so I expected to have to start over but she was fantastic. It was just the idiot in the V8.
 
#6 ·
id be surprised if the cops do anything, vehicle probably has illegal exhaust that the cops are ignoring. Here we have alot of motorcycles with illegal exhaust sytems and a sheriffs department too lazy to enforce the law. I live on a popular weekend ride route and literraly get hundreds of bikes passing my house. Surprisingly though as inconsiderate as they are to everyone else, the bikers always slow down and let off the throttle when they pass horses.
 
#7 ·
I see both sides to this being a horse owner, and a car enthusiast. under no circumstance should a car speed by a horse, honk their horn or get too close!

But I do own a loud car. Even at a idle, it rumbles. Give it a little gas and it roars. I cant expect every car to have a smart, knowledgeable person in it while i'm riding. I expect my horse to take my direction, even if hes scared, even more so hand walking (on the ground). Just get her exposed to all sorts of crazy, weird, loud, obnoxious noises and desensitize her.
 
#8 ·
I just get so annoyed with the attitude of people like that. There used to be a forest where I would ride as a kid with trails, it was right next to a riding school and was pretty much solely a horse place but every now and then people would bring these loud dirt bikes and just go speeding around the forest - and they would just go past horses and riders blowing up all this dust and laugh. Its all very well to say its good to desensitise your horse, but a kid riding along even real quiet horses get antsy and might throw a rider. I know one guy once galloped after them after his friend fell off, blocked their path, yanked the keys out and threw them in the river.

People can just have a little respect and compassion I think, especially on country roads and in loud cars.
 
#9 ·
Yeah Grl but the faster you go in a V8 the louder it gets... so isn't it a lot safer for all involved (car included!! horses do a lot of damage if you hit them) to slow down going past horses? ESPECIALLY if you have a loud car.

I don't think it was an illegal exhaust, I mean it was loud but the V8s here are notorious for being noisy. We used to live next door to a guy who had a really nice one and he would come home at 11pm or even midnight, moving basically at a crawl so his car was less likely to wake everyone up. I liked him. He was a chef, it was suburbia.

Now that we're on our 10 acres we see a lot more of the inconsiderate but it doesn't disturb us as much as it would if we were still in the burbs.

Luckily the majority of the trailbikers around here are really horse-considerate but even if they weren't Monty is so de-spooked to them you can do donuts behind him and he won't bat an eyelid. Our next door neighbour has grandkids who have trailbikes and they come down every holidays and carve it up alongside our pastures so they are effectively despooking all the others... sure they are loud but they're having fun and it's going to make riding our horses a lot safer in the long run.

Like I said I don't think the cops CAN do anything without witnessing it themselves and they rarely if ever come out to my area. Still worth having a chat to them to discuss my options though. They do such a service to the community and even when they can't do anything, most of them do care about the people who need their help. Even if it's just emotional support... our cops are brilliant.

I'm not so mad any more, but I'm sure if I'd been hurt I'd be a hell of a lot more peeved. I'm just worried that this might make my little horse more afraid and unfortunately unless you ride on the roads there's nowhere to put miles on a young horse... I don't want to have to fight with her every time a car goes past when she's 3yo+ and weighs twice what she does now.

I think I'll have to find myself some cheap beat-up old 4WD and carve up in the adjacent pasture to where the horses are. Driving practice for me (am STILL not even on my learners yet) and de-spooking for the foal. And I won't get hurt, no matter what she does. Good plan? -nods- I think I like that plan. But then how to dispose of beat-up old car when it dies...?
 
#11 ·
That really does suck, though at least a lesson was learned from this & the best thing you can do it attempted to despook your horse from 'everything'. Many people you encounter will be the same as this guy, at least now you can expect it.

Saying this, this does not mean the horse won't spook at cars - ever. No matter how much despooking, all horses still spook.
 
#12 ·
I know horses, trust me. Been in the game 10 years. Mr Monty is the only educated horse I've ever had so I have some bad habits from permanently riding green and unbalanced or strung-out and dead-to-the-aids (my first horses, versus lesson ponies), but I do know just how easy it is for a horse to spook. Monty sometimes spooks at absolutely nothing. He is pretty much dead broke but he still has the spook in him.

The main difference between Monty and Satin is that Monty has been ridden so extensively on busy roads that basically nothing that traffic does really phases him... which of course is a big problem when a semi-trailer's bearing down on you and the horse is more worried about the leaf on the side of the road!! He is a dork. I'm sure he only spooks to make sure I'm paying attention.

I agree that all Satin needs is more exposure... I would just LOVE a way to get her more exposure without having to put myself at risk of getting run over again. Hence the beat-up old 4WD idea, but then I'm not sure how to get rid of car bodies and as a learner driver I'll be tough on a car so anything beat-up (& unregistered, since it's not going to leave the property) and thus cheap enough for me to afford isn't going to survive long.
 
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