AIBU - Horse riders pick up poo?

[kaz2810]

First time asking on here so here it goes!

I'm bloody fuming, we live in a fairly large town but are lucky enough to live by a lovely canal. First 1/4 mile or so is a concrete path wide enough for 2 people to walk side by side. I'm walking along this afternoon and in the distance there are some horses & a women with a buggy feeding ducks. One of the horses poo's and as normal keeps going leaving a steaming pile all over the path meaning that anyone with a pram, wheelchair etc cannot get past unless they lift over or roll straight through it. ( bushes one side & water the other side of path) this is a daily occurance and I'm totally fed up of dodging it. Surely when on a concrete pathway the riders could show some consideration to others?

And if the towpath was bridleway (some are) then you need to expect some horse poo - impossible to tell whether the OP was being reasonable, unreasonable or intolerant from the details on the OP.

The people objecting to horses riding on pavements are correct to object (imo). The people who think horses should never go anywhere except a place specifically for horses (& get there via a trailer) are unreasonable. People objecting to poo on pavements are reasonable, people objecting to poo on lanes or shared usage paths where you would expect to see horses are unreasonable. People insisting ridden horses can wear dung bags sound like people who know little about how horses are ridden.

And if you changed the rules for everyone because of a few inconsiderate arseholes then parents with buggies would be banned from leaving the house.

people objecting to poo on lanes or shared usage paths where you would expect to see horses are unreasonable.

Not according to the British Horse Society Scotland who have managed to ensure horses are allowed on all towpaths.

“If your horse dungs on a multi-use path, especially on a path used by cyclists, wheelchairs or prams, it is courteous and responsible to:
• position your horse at the side of the path if you can before it starts, or
• dismount and kick it to the side. Please only kick the dung though, and not the path surface too.
As above for roads, it would be courteous to riding schools and liv- ery yards to do a regular “poo run” to clear dung from local paths.“

People insisting ridden horses can wear dung bags sound like people who know little about how horses are ridden

Equally people who think it’s ok for,wheelchair users to wheel through horse shit know little about using a manual wheelchair.

As I said I know far more about wheelchairs than I would like. And providing horses are not ridden on pavements then the accessibility issues from horse poo is going to be minimal. Most bridlways are not accessible to wheelchairs at all and lanes are large enough to steer around.

Horses should not be on pavements. But that comes under inconsiderate arse category and i’d lump them together with people refusing to fold buggies in wheelchair spaces in buses.

But it still happens Devillish, the evidence is on this thread! If you are familiar with wheelchairs you must be aware of the barriers that wheelchair users face daily, why add to them?

lanes are large enough to steer around. That really isn't true depends on the width of the lane, where the poo is, how big the poo is and how big the wheelchair is. We have lanes round here where you definitely couldn't do it with a double buggy or one of those electric mobility scooters unless the poo was right at the edge of the lane.

It does sound like the original towpath in question might not be suitable for horses if impacting other users like wheelchair users. I also agree horses shouldn't be on pavements.

I disagree that horses should always be transported to bridleways, because usually there isn't parking even if you had the means, and I disagree nappies are a solution as the mechanics of them would be a horse welfare issue (Janey, you'll see that other straps such as bridle, girth are designed not to move and rub)

I have enjoyed the thread though!

By lane I mean something that a car drives down.

Anything that cannot take a car here tends to be unpaved and rocky and there’s no way a wheelchair (or most pushchairs) will get down it.

As liits said a saddle strap doesn’t move (or pull come to that). If a saddle starts moving you’ll find the horse can start moving in a way you don’t want (and you’ll probably end up on the floor).

Saddles don’t flap either. Flapping things near horses are rarely sensible. They hide tigers. According to the horse brain anyway.

So it’s not an issue near you Devillish. Great. That’s clearly not the case everywhere, the evidence is on the thread. And playing devils advocate, if it is so rare it shouldn’t be much of an inconvenience for the rider.

We have lanes that cars can get down (just) but as I said with those narrow lanes if the poo is in the middle of the lane (and it always seems to be) it is difficult at best and impossible for some to steer round the poo. For example I have a friend with two sets of twins, the twin buggy definitely can't be steered round a pile of poo in the middle of the lane. From where I live this lane is the route to the school, to use a wider lane is a massive detour along a busy road with no pavement.

TBH if there is a lane with horse poo on it - it sounds as if it’s a country school. And you surely have to expect horse poo in the country. If lanes are that narrow you’re surely going to be getting tractors etc (which one carry a lot more crap than one horse) going up and down. I pushed a double buggy around the country for a number of years (off road one so could manage it) and I suppose it got horse poo on. I only remember getting irritated by dog poo.

Bears - apart form the pavement cases how often is this issue? Most of the posts seem to be from people with imaginary complaints ‘it might happen’ or complaining about poo on country lanes. (Bizarre).

Whether it’s possible/safe/preferable or not to dismount etc has been done to death. I can tell when a walking horse is pooing. I can’t always tell when a trotting horse is pooing.

Wheeled the buggy through horse manure several times, usually gone by the time I'm home and no horrific smell. Dog muck on the buggy wheels mind...

No a tractor couldn't possibly go down this lane, well it could if it could get in or out but due to the tight corners at either end it would be stuck for ever. It runs between a row of old cottages, it isn't a long lane but not using it would mean using the long way round with the busy road and no pavement. Nice choice really, getting your buggy covered in poo or risk your child's life. The horse riders are bloody selfish and it must be a misery for people in the cottages who constantly have piles of poo in front of their houses. If you make a mess you should clean it up.

I don’t know how often it happens Devillish, I am one person in one location, I haven’t taken a census! There are people on this thread including the OP who have seen this. You can deny them if you want to (and several posters clearly do), but it happens enough in Scotland to be in their BHS code...

Well presumably the owners of the cottages knew there was poo there when they bought it - so up to them. And I guess the horse riders use the lane to avoid the busy road. If it’s too dangerous for a pedestrian it isn’t going to be very safe for horses.

I personally wouldn’t even notice horse poo outside my house unless I was on the look out for some for my garden.

I drive the long way round when I pick up grandchildren, shame as it should be a lovely walk but God forbid horse riders should have to give up the freedom of letting their horses poo here there and everywhere so that the majority of people can enjoy a country walk. The horse riders don't have to go down the lane, they could enjoy lots of rides avoid the lane which ever side of it they are starting out from As I said in an earlier post there are two women who seem to take delight in causing problems. On the wider lane they ride side by side so people can't get past, they sometimes bring kids out with signs (flapping by the way) on the horse saying things like "inexperienced rider" or "nervous horse" and cause mayhem. There are much more suitable places for them to take a nervous horse than past a school at 3.30 where surprise surprise children are pouring out of the gate making a noise, running about etc.

Devilish they don't need to use the main road, they can ride without going from one end of that lane to the other as there are plenty of suitable lanes they can use. From the riding stables they have much safer lanes than by going down this lane to the school.

bear what are you hoping to achieve with insisting the only solution is for the rider to clean up? Rather than the far more sensible option of say dividing the few concrete paths that are shared use?

I imagine it is far more likely for a rider to be involved in an accident trying to dismount and kick poo on a shared path than it is for a wheelchair user to be unable to access a shared space simply because of horse muck. And by accident I mean dismounting when either horses temperament/ current training or riders ability to remount would make that a risk, or when there is a possibility someone else in the environment might do something stupid.

Don't forget riding and disability aren't mutually exclusive, it's not just able bodied agile riders you are expecting to hop off, but those who are already limited by disability too.

Actually I hadn't thought about this from the horses point of view before but these women are cruel aren't they? To make some sort of point they put the horses in a stressful situation and then get irate and start shouting at people instead of using the quiet, safe lanes on "their" side of the little narrow lane. I'm not sure why a horse lover would do that.

Can I have a round of applause please. I be just been for a hack (down a fairly busy road and then mostly on a single tarmaced lane) my horse didn’t do a poo the whole time

I did have to deal with twats however on the main road who thought it was ok to go round me doing about 40mph and about 3 feet away. Luckily my horse is bomb proof but some consideration from drivers would be nice as I’m legally entitled to be on the road.

Horses are always stressed, honestly they live in a perpetually heightened state of vigil. Exposing them to a range of threatening stimuli helps them process it and is how we end up with safe, ‘bomb proof’ companions.