To have just shouted at a horse rider outside my house

[BigRedBall]

Have namechanged for privacy.

I am so angry right now. We sometimes (twice a year at most) get horses going past our house as we live around the corner from a small private farm. We live in a city, so it's quite a novelty when we hear the sound of "clip clop" outside.

About 20 mins ago we heard the sound of clip clop and I took DS to the front room to look outside. As we watched the horses go by one stopped and kind of turned around and SHITTED RIGHT OUTSIDE MY DRIVEWAY. Not a small bit...a big arse full of horse shit. And the rider laughed at her other horsey friends.

As soon as I saw it I put my shoes on and ran outside and the rider was going on her way again. Her friends had gone up ahead. I ran up to her shouting "excuse me" and she wouldn't stop. I shouted at her if she was going to clear up the horse poo outside my house and she replied "stop shouting at me" without even turning around to see I had a toddler in my arms.

I couldn't go any further because I was holding my DS and had left a sleeping baby inside.

Now I have a pile of horse shit outside my house, and I want to actually KILL this horse rider. Our road is a school route and I don't want children stepping in it but why the fuck should I have to clear it up? I am so pissed off. I want to get into the car and hunt down the fuckers and pull them back by their ears and tell them to clean it.

If I drove my car on the road without a tax disc, I would be fined. Horses should be licensed, and so should cyclists; there is no way of tracing them if they cause an accident ie the girl who was riding her horse, recently in a busy lane, leading two ponies on leading reins, and texting at the same time. But to go back to the original complaint, if a human defecated outside your house, would that be acceptable?

I've just skimmed through this only actually reading the OP's posts and it tells me all I need to know about the responses

OP - you sound great, I imagine the horses were bombproof, and I am glad it has now gone.

Horse shit is just glorified dog shit...just because it came out of a horse's arse it's like gold?

Clearly a townie.

I also got a ranter when riding past her house on a bridleway. Or at least similar to a bridleway, deinfatley for equestrian use and signposted as such, but shared vehicular access to her house as well. She claimed I was "churning up her drive with my horse's hooves", a drive which she and her neighbours paid a lot of money to maintain. tbh I'd be questioning the value she got for her money about that one but no real reason to object to people running along it. She also got in a little mini rant about runners and dog walkers at the same time. I just rode off, mid rant, it was too nice a day to be hanging around being ranted at.

The ranter while I was running though, I told him if he ever bothered me again I would report him to the police for harassing me.

Essiebee Horses don't have internal combustion engines, and the government isn't trying to incentivise the use of shetland ponies because they have smaller lungs, and thus breathe a small volume of air each year.

So no need to tax your horse.

www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables

No!

*smaller

Essiebee Horses should be licensed, and so should cyclists; there is no way of tracing them if they cause an accident

Well all horses now have passports (pretty much a license) and are microchipped at birth, so if you have a microchip reader, you could go ahead and trace them.

I'm not sure what else you think should be done. A barcode on their legs might contravene animal welfare laws.

This sh** reminds me we have a problem every morn just before kids head out to car to start school run! there's fresh dog poo always right in front of our gates. It's happened consecutive days now, I don't know what to do. I can't sit there from 7am very busy sorting kids out, as is husband. makes me really angry.

So I can understand your sentiments. Horse poo may not be dangerous to kids, but it's friggin huge. Also to some ppl who only smell the country when driving along the motor way the smell will be abhorrent. I'm used to the smell, no i don't spend my days having a whiff, but spent time in good ole welsh country, after 2 days it's fresh air. So I don't notice it, husband would though. Just shovel it up.

Or if you know which farm they came from contact them to kindly collect the mess?

Honestly that is all you have to worry about.......seriously go get a life. Have you looked at a newspaper or watched the news lately ,there are lots of things to get angry at not friffing horse shit.

If I drove my car on the road without a tax disc, I would be fined

You continue to avoid miss the point that it is emissions tax, not road tax.
You could easily cause an accident in a car and drive off, never to be seen again.

But to go back to the original complaint, if a human defecated outside your house, would that be acceptable?

No but there is a significant difference, in that one is illegal, the other not. The feaces of a human and a horse are different. Plus how, exactly, do you propose a rider get rid of said poop?

If the horse defecated on the road outside OP's house, then it is a public road. The OP says it was outside her driveway, suggesting it was the road. If it was her driveway or the pavement, that is wrong of them but I probably would have ridden away from some raving lunatic, too.

What a pile in

wigglewaggledagger I completely agree.

I haven't ridden for too many years and probably never will again.

It doesn't fit in with my lifestyle/geography any more and if I started again I'd probably be too tempted to do something a little bit beyond my capabilities and hurt myself.

But there is nothing greater than galloping in a safe place - I used to go on holidays to the Brecon Becons as a teenager - or just ambling about looking at nature in my 20s.

Because wild animals are sometimes less spooked by ambling horses with people on their backs than human walkers so you get to see more.

Obviously there are some humans who are spooked by horse shit. But they are strange. IMHO

"Well I just looked outside and it's gone. Someone's removed it."

Well that was predictable, and indeed predicted early in the thread.

YwereBU, though, OP even if you did remind me of my DM ranting about horses on roads inspite of having lived in the country for the last 30 years

Wow OP I guess most of the people who have responded to you must be horse owners/riders.

YANBU to feel angry about the pile of shit at the end of your drive - assuming it is on the footpath. It hangs around for weeks on footpaths, there are regularly huge lumps of horse poo on our route to school which everyone has to negotiate; children, pushchairs, wheelchairs. Manure does not magically melt away when it rains - even out here in the country!

I see no reason why after the first "Excuse me" the rider couldn't have offered to come back later and bag it up. Unless you were very ranty when you initially called after her?

Phone or go round to the farm and ask them to clear it up if you don't want it for your compost.

It doesn't always work out to let off steam on MN......

Wow, I actually can't believe the OP, or the people saying she was NBU!
You (the YANBU-ers) keep saying 'They should clean it up', to which the response is 'Yeah right, HOW?', and no one has come up with a sensible solution, because there isn't one and there is no requirement for one! And apologies to the Dragons Den lady, I don't think they would sell because anyone who owns a horse knows that horse shit is the most harmless shit of all, and that it breaks down very quickly when run over, rained on, etc. So they would not buy your delightful Pony Pampers even if people like the OP think they should!

Anyway, my point is, you were very U, it wasn't even on your property so I don't really see how it affects you, and running up and screaming at a horse, especially with a child, was.. well, let's just leave it at foolish. The rider wasn't being rude, she was probably trying to keep her horse quiet and listening to her instead of panicking at the spooky shouting woman!
I have one question though, how exactly did you want her to clean it up when you ran after her? What was your clean up plan? I can't get my head around what you wanted to happen... Scoop it up with the shovel she doesn't have, and put it where?

Clearly a townie

No UptheChimney

I'm a suburbanite and now a Central Londonite.

The OP is wrong.

That's it.

YABU to expect a sympathetic answer to your problem on this site. Maybe if all the people telling you that you over-reacted had a big pile of horse shit on their doorstep they wouldn't be so understanding. Or maybe they all have roses to shower it on.
I'm with you - I would've been mad.

Seriously. This has got to be a wind up.

Dog poo is a health risk. Horse poo is great for your carrots and runner beans so clearly not a health risk.

Horses do not create pollution, cars do and therefore have to pay for it.

Good God. I can't believe people are that ignorant in this day and age.

OP

*if horses are such delicate animals then maybe it's not a good idea to ride them around behind a built up area where a lot cars drive through for a short cut to the main road.

We're near a hospital too so loads of ambulances and air ambulance can be heard throughout the day. What do the horses do then?*

My old horse was a complete school-master, you name it, he'd been there and got the T-shirt, so to speak. It's known as bomb proof. He could cope with tractors, lorries, double decker buses etc passing by him on the road without batting an eyelid. On the whole, he was good with noise (traffic, loud-speakers at competition, flapping bags stuck in bushes etc).

However, if some woman ran up behind him, shouting and carrying a small child I could not guarantee that he would not have been spooked and reacted accordingly. Even the most reliable of nags can get a fright once in a while, and generally something running up from behind them and screaming is more frightening than a noise or vehicle/object they will have gotten used to, such as large vehicles or vehicles with sirens.

Essentially, what you did, especially while holding a child, was very foolish and put yourself, your child, anyone around you, as well as the rider (not to mention the horse) at risk of being hurt.

I can understand you not being thrilled about the horse pooh near your driveway, though I think the salient point is that the horse didn't shit on the pavement or on your property, but on the public road.

You were totally OTT to shout. I have reported someone for doing something similar and they got some sort of formal warning from the police.

And horses do have the right to use public roads, including shitting on them. It's perfectly legal for horses and riders to be on the road, so long as they are obeying the highway code and not trespassing on your property or damaging it.

It's not a health hazard, unless you are planning on letting your child crawl through it and eat it. Older children can presumably avoid it if they wish to, what with it being so massive an eyesore.

I genuinely can't see why you don't understand it would be completely impractical to carry round a shovel and bag to shovel it up. And what where would they be tying the horse up so they could tidy the shit up? Or do you really think it safe to have an unsupervised horse on the loose? Just plain daft!

Maybe it was the rider who picked it up.

Maybe she would have explained that to you if you weren't going garritty behind her horse.

I am seriously surprised you didn't get a hoof in your face, or worse in your toddlers face, if you went running up to a horse shouting.

Surely everybody knows not to do that!!!!!

It is a pile in, Stick.

All the telling the OP to get a life is what AIBU is all about though

I wasn't running up screaming! I shouted "excuse me , are you going to pick up that horse poo", to which I was told to stop shouting.

Do you even realise what "screaming" means? I wasn't running after her wailing and screeching.

I wouldn't bother OP, they've made their minds up.