Posting for traffic as feeling really shaken up by this incident and honestly not sure what I should have done differently.
Driving yesterday afternoon, come out of a village with a 30 limit onto a country road section which is a 60 limit. Accelerated out of village so probably doing 40 ish when I come round a corner and find a large horse with a rider walking very slowly in the road in front of me. There is a car coming in the other direction so I do an emergency stop and thankfully come to a stop a few metres away. The car behind also has to do emergency stop.
The horse thankfully was not spooked by this and continues walking on but the rider is very angry, shouting and waving his hands at me.
I slowly drive past the horse and continue on my way. I always drive very slowly near horses
I don't speed, I'm one of those people who do 30 until the speed sign in a village (we live fairly rurally so lots of journeys are short stretches of 30 through villages then stretches of 60 between).
Thinking about it I'm not sure there was anything else I could have done differently apart from drive at slowly all the time which obviously isn't a sensible option. I could have been doing 50 or 60 by that point if I had accelerated harder in which case I would have likely killed the horse, rider and possibly myself.
I'm still feeling quite shaken the day after and worried about it happening again - is there something I'm missing or is this just the risk we take when driving??