# Worst motor vehicle experience on horseback?



## iRide Ponies (Aug 10, 2012)

What is your worst experience on horseback or with a horse with a motor vehicle?

I wanna hear the stories. xD.

Heres mine;, I was leading my mare up the road, home from a lovely ride when a car backed out of a driveway in front of us. I saw it coming, and stopped about 10m away. The car proceeded to drive slowly up the road, and I followed it, maintaining my distance, eager to be home and eating dinner. Suddenly, in the middle of a busy road, the car reversed with speed. the driver did not check his mirror or peer out the window, I was in the middle of the quiet road and wearing florescent body armor, my pony was wearing a florescent bridle. The light was good. Still, the driver managed to back up and RAM his car into us! He hit my pony in the flank, causing her to throw her head up and scream. She then spun around, LEAPT over my head as I fell to the ground, and bolted don the road. The driver, completely oblivious to me and my horse, which had just bolted past his window, continued to reverse and would have crushed me behind his hind wheels if my neighbor had not bolted from his house, waving his arms and screaming at the man to stop.

Rest assured the driver got the talking to of his life. He didn't even seem sorry. My horse was okay, we found her about 300m away grazing on a lawn.

The man claimed he had no idea we where behind him. Like, whatever.


So who can top that for a motorist story? I wanna hear some!


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## Janna (Apr 19, 2012)

My own retarded sister nearly hit us, we were in the grass, too. 
She thinks she has to fly down the road. 

My horses is now scared every time a vehicle passes us and starts shaking. 
Totally brilliant since most of my places to ride are the side of the road.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

I was riding one of the dude string horses at our barn on a trail ride and we were crossing the main road in front of the stable on our way back. There was no one on the road for a good mile or two except one motorcyclist on a Harley. My friend crossed the road first on her arab mare and I followed on Reno (big paint horse). I was kind of letting Reno find his own way across because the motorcycle was so far away that we didn't have to worry about it...or so I thought. The guy actually sped up so that he reached us just as we were in the middle of his lane on the road, then got within fifteen feet of us and revved his engine hard. He was slightly behind and to the right of us, so neither me nor Reno saw him. When he revved his engine, Reno half reared and bolted toward the stable (which we could see from the road). The saddle I was in was too big for me and the stirrups were too long (but it was the only saddle that fit Reno) and I very nearly came unseated. My friend was freaking out because she totally thought I was going to come off. She was immensely surprised when I actually got Reno back under control from his mad dash toward the stable and managed to keep my seat.


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## loveduffy (Dec 22, 2011)

wow I would of losted it


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## barrelbeginner (Jan 31, 2012)

oh jee.. I have the normal.. people not slowing down when they see horses that irritates me like no other..

one story I have

I was riding my gelding sunny.. Many of you may know.. he is spooky.. but he was having a good day. not very spooky so I was riding down a dirt road.. and a car started to come..( the car itself doesnt scare him) and he noticed a bucket.. yes a bucket on the side of the road.. and flipped sheet.. and was all prancing in the MIDDLE of the road.. as a car came barreling toward us.... so if this was the road


/ /<< lol I was the dot.... / . / so kinda a little to the side.. the car DIDNT even slow down as my horse was having a total spazz attack...

thats the day I wish I had some rocks to throw and the darn people


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Another experience I had (luckily my horse didn't freak out, but another horse I was riding with did) was on the way back from a dude string ride led by the trainer at our barn. I had decided to join the ride at the last minute and there were two other ladies on the ride (so four of us all together). We were on our way back, heading down the last road before we crossed the main road back to the barn, and I was riding drag on my 2.5-year-old, when this big diesel dump truck turned onto the road coming toward us. When he saw the horses, he started revving his engine as he came up on us. The first two horses (the trainer on Jazzy and one of the ladies on Jack) were fine, but Bubba, the horse in front of me, started absolutely freaking out. He bolted off the road and across a ditch, then kept trying to run through the fence on the other side of the ditch. The guy driving the dump truck started LAUGHING when he saw Bubba freak and revved his engine harder! I was so ****ed that I didn't even think. I just dropped Aires' reins until I held them by the buckle (I use English reins) and started shaking my head and gesturing for the guy to slow down and quit revving his engine. I wasn't paying any attention whatever to what Aires was doing, but he just kept on walking straight, even when the truck passed within a few feet of us.


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## Ne0n Zero (Dec 25, 2008)

I don't have bad road experiences.. Beau is fearless of motorized vehicles. I have some funny ones though.

First, I was riding down a back road with a friend and a huge diesel pickup truck came down the road behind us. We reined the horses off to the side of the road and let them graze while the truck passed. Stupid ******* truck driver thought it would he funny to rev his engine and blacksmoke it as he passed, thinking he would scare them. We got the last laugh though as he sped off, ego hurt because the horses didn't even twitch an ear. They were like yeah, ok, so not impressed. 

Second, I had Beau on the road in front of the barn when a motorcyclist came down the road, again behind us. Typically motorcyclists around here are actually very respectful when they see us on the road, they'll slow down and wave or nod, give us room, and politely go on their way. This one though, a young guy, revved his bike behind Beau. Was he scared? Nope. What did he do? Got ****ed, put his ears back, (I gave him his head), and he BOLTED down the road after the biker, wanting to race! We caught him at the stop sign and he laughed and saluted us. 

I love my horse, ****.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

Not a worst experience at all, but I expected it to be. Was out trail riding with a friend the other day, heard airplane engines, and within a few seconds two C-130s (big 4-engine military transport planes) went right over us at not much more than treetop level. Just had time to think "Omigawd Ellie's going to be crazy spooked!". Friend's horse danced a bit, but not bad. Ellie was just "Yeah, so can we get on with the riding?"


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## LikeIke17 (Mar 18, 2011)

Hmm... lets think.

People are generally okay around my place. When I want to go to the trails, I ride down a fairly straight road but there are no sidewalks or anything. So it's somewhat narrow.

I've had people speed by me and honk at the horses. That made me so angry. Seriously? How rude.

I've had my old Arab freaking out on the way home and decide that jumping into the middle of the road while a car was coming would be the best decision he could make at the time. Thank God the car slammed on it's brakes and didn't hit me. 

I had someone rev their engine at us intentionally. Now, my horses are quite well behaved and rarely spook while on the road. And thankfully they didn't. They just get a little more alert and stare at it like "What is THAT and why is that noise happening??". 

While people don't think about it (so it's really not their fault at all) is the little reflectors in the median lines. They run over those going at a fast pace and it makes a pretty sharp popping noise. Yeah, my horses always jump at that. Not dangerously of course, but it still scares them.

Motorcycles are the worst because they are loud and some moron zipped past us going at least sixty. Not only was he going quickly but I could have reached out and whacked him on the head with my crop.  That makes me laugh thinking about it!

I've also had cars come WAY too close for comfort as they speed "around" us. They might as well just hit me! I think it's enough space if your car is AT LEAST half way into the other lane. But when you are still pretty much in the same lane as me, it's too close. 

I always want to hit the cars as they go by.

(If someone intentionally made eye contact with me and revved their engines/did something on purpose to freak out my horses, I would call the cops. You don't mess with me like that.)

As for the guy that hit you and your horse OP, he would be in the hospital when I was done with him. Awful people in this world.

OKAY I'm done posting!  Geez, you got me started!


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## iRide Ponies (Aug 10, 2012)

LikeIke17 said:


> While people don't think about it (so it's really not their fault at all) is the little reflectors in the median lines. They run over those going at a fast pace and it makes a pretty sharp popping noise. Yeah, my horses always jump at that. Not dangerously of course, but it still scares them.


Oh Gosh yes. I haven't had problems with the reflectors as such, but I know from experience that big cars over shells on the beach are just as bad. Makes like a gunshots sound, horrible. My mare got used to it pretty quick and doesn't even flick an ear, but I know some horses who are petrified of it. people just don't realize. Of course, if they slowed down it would minimize the problem..


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## HollyBubbles (Jun 22, 2009)

Well, considering that legally in NZ, cars are allowed to pass horses and riders at 100kmh because a horse is a legal mode of transport... lets not go there -_-


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## MyLittleHunter (Jul 20, 2009)

I've had several bad experiences with drivers, but this one time sticks out to me:

I was riding Dallas up the road to my current trainer's house, it was daytime, visibility was fine. Still to be safe I was wearing a neon yellow safety vest that had reflective stripes and little red lights I could turn on(they were off because it was sunny out), and a band of reflective tape around my helmet. It was nearly impossible to miss me. 

This 18 year old driver comes flying up the road with his dog in the front seat, he's talking on his cell phone, not paying any attention to the road. I didn't have time to react, Dallas stood frozen waiting for the car to smash into him, I heard the brakes screech and he came to a stop 6in from Dallas's hindquarters. I was scared to death and started screaming at him. He backed up and then guned it up the road like nothing happened. People are unbelievable.


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## iRide Ponies (Aug 10, 2012)

HollyBubbles said:


> Well, considering that legally in NZ, cars are allowed to pass horses and riders at 100kmh because a horse is a legal mode of transport... lets not go there -_-


Yeah, I'm in NZ too.. It sucks. You think the road is bad? try the beach. Especially when the tide is high and there is limited space. People see nothing againest barreling past you at 100km


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## Ashsunnyeventer (Aug 17, 2012)

I don't know if this counts, but one time when we were pulling a 3 horse slant load up a hill, the garbage truck behind us passed us ON THE RIGHT. Totally on the shoulder, he just zoomed past and literally had 15 ft before the shoulder turned to grass.

I was trail riding one time and my friends and I had no idea where we were going (our plan was to ride for a while, then take out the map to find our way home). The park had a 2 lane busy road through it, but we were going to cross it to get to the other trails. My friends got across the road, but I heard a car coming, so I waited. We let that car pass (never even touched the brakes and we were standing on the shoulder). Another car was coming, but they were pretty far away, so we were just goin to trot across real quick. The driver SPED UP and LAID ON THE HORN. My horse spun around and we safely made it back to the shoulder where we were standing before (it was my horse's first time being on a road). After about 10 minutes, someone was smart enough to stop to let us by. 

I think that in horse-populated areas, horse safety should be taught in drivers ed. So many people don't understand that horses are flight animals and can get scared easily. 
Also, we parked the trailer at Dunkin Donuts once and you would've thought the president was there. Everyone in the drive through stopped to take pictures and people wanted to pet the horses. You'd think in such a rural area, it wouldn't be such a big deal


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## Shoebox (Apr 18, 2012)

Oh man, I just had a nasty experience not too long ago with roads.

Clementine's pasture used to border a quiet road, and no matter what passed the horses never got scared. I could ride her up and down it and the cars wouldn't faze her. So, a few months later at her new stable, me and another girl who boarded went on a ride. You had to go down a semi-busy street to get to the quiet back roads. Now, it wasn't like a highway, but there was a steady amount of cars. Based on how good she did before I thought she would be just fine.

Silly me. She was scared. She spooked at every car. I thought about going back, but while she was spooking, she listened to me and my cues and stayed going in a straight line. No bolting or skittering, so I thought she was good. I managed to keep her in line until the quieter roads, where she was fine, even when cars passed. Okay, so, she's fine with the occasional car, but not heavier car traffic. So, we went around the dirt roads, past a school, weaved through some roundabouts. She was fine. Didn't even spook at the white crosswalk paint. Until we approached this semi busy road on the way back. It was farther down the road, and so added about a quarter mile to the busy roads.

This is where it gets nasty. For some reason, even though on the way out she was mostly okay, she went into full, 100% panic mode. Eyes huge, head tossing. Skittering at every car. The last straw was when a firetruck absolutely blasted by - I felt her tense, and then she turned and bolted about 20 feet. I got off, unclipped one rein and clipped it to her rope halter, leaving the other clipped to the bridle. It's good that I did. It got to the point where she was CONSTANTLY tugging, hopping, running, and it took all I had to keep hold of her. She stepped on a soda can at one point and kicked her back legs out so high she almost fell forwards. Being such a stocky, heavy horse I didn't even think she could do that! It was a mile and a half of pure torture, trying to stop my 2000 pound machine from trampling me (Almost happened). Looking back, we should have just gone back right away, but she wasn't doing too bad, I figured it would be the same on the way back. 

Several times she almost broke free of me, which would have been dangerous, because she would have bolted into the road. Mind you, while this was happening, the girl I was riding with rode along making comments about how badly my horse is trained and how had she known this would happen she wouldn't have come along (Hah, me too), and how I was doing everything wrong. (Then why don't you get off and show me, hmm?) 

We made it back. Clem calmed down and I discovered her main vice - traffic. It was awful, and though it was pretty obvious we were having issues, cars didn't even bother slowing down for us. One even honked. Many times. Some people, I swear. If I ever see people on horses, I make sure to slow down to prevent such things from happening. I couldn't even be upset - She was scared. Granted, she could have been scared and continued to listen to me, I should have taken her back when I realized she was uncomfortable with the traffic to start out with. We lunged upon returning to reestablish the fact that she needs to listen to me, and then did some very basic groundwork to end on a good note. Needless to say, it was terrifying.


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## peppersgirl (Aug 24, 2012)

I have had a few close calls, and they all happened when I lived in Nebraska. The farmers in the corn area of that state think you need to bow down to them and their semis.. They will hit a good 60 mph hauling grain on a gravel road and they wont slow down for you if your walking, riding a horse, bike riding ectect, even though the dust cloud they are creating will cover half a darn section. a-holes is all i have to say:/

Pepper got used to me slowing the semis down, or even stopping them...which would tick the farmer off pretty bad Hey man, two can play this uncourteous game..

Down here in kansas people are a lot more courteous and will slow down so you dont get dusted out. 

also there was another time when we were riding on a curvey pivot road and some kids came swurving around the curve at a decent speed...with a kid on the roof of the car... we heard them coming and were in the process off getting ourselves in a more visable spot out of the way (I dont mess with such things as above unless im confidant the offender can see me and my horse from AT LEAST a 1/2 mile away)..stupid kids **** near hit my horse. We called the sheriff.


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## HollyBubbles (Jun 22, 2009)

iRide Ponies said:


> Yeah, I'm in NZ too.. It sucks. You think the road is bad? try the beach. Especially when the tide is high and there is limited space. People see nothing againest barreling past you at 100km


I have yet to take my gelding to the beach yet :lol: But the beaches around here don't have many idiots driving all over them so I'm lucky in that aspect


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## AngieLee (Feb 20, 2011)

My horse is normally really good with vehicles. cars, trucks, motorcycles, farm equipment, could care less. He gets a tad jittery with bigger school buses and peddle bikes, but he still listens and doesn't dance or drag us into the middle of the road when they are passing. So though its something id like him to get used to, i'm not overly worried about it either.

The closest that My horse and I have gotten was that we were riding down a pretty quite road back to our barn. It myself and my horse Cody, my friend and her mare Splash, and our other friend and her gelding Skip. Anyways we were all riding and a HUGE transport truck starts coming towards us, we were on the road and beside is was a pretty deep ditch, on the other side another ditch and a fence line with barking dogs. great. So we start jogging towards the nearest drive way we could find. However the Transport truck pretty much beat us to it. or pretty darn close. Splash and my friend jumped the ditch (goda love having a horse who will jump anything you point her at  ), Skip and his owner made it to the drive way. Cody and I not so much, and needless to say hes not a fan of transport trucks. I was about to ask him to go into the ditch when the nice transport driver stopped to let us past into the driveway. Which was very lucky on my part as when the truck past Cody lost his brain. he went to bolt, almost took us into the side of the truck, i cranked him into a tight circle and kept spinning him until the truck past. and then made him stand until he chilled. It was pretty scary.


However, last spring there was a girl who was hit and killed by a truck, her horse was as well. It wasn't the drivers fault. The speed limit was 80 Kilometers per hour, they had been in there driveway so he wouldn't have seen them, but her horse spooked and bolted into the road right in front of the truck. There was no hope in hell that the truck could have stopped in time. Sadly the girls father witnessed the whole thing :-(


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## iRide Ponies (Aug 10, 2012)

HollyBubbles said:


> I have yet to take my gelding to the beach yet :lol: But the beaches around here don't have many idiots driving all over them so I'm lucky in that aspect


xD. I'm talking about 90mile, the big long one up the top of the north? People treat it like its a giant yellow highway.


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## Customcanines (Jun 17, 2012)

WHen I was about 15, we had been to a horse show and came home late at night hauling a 2 horse trailer with my horse and my friends horse inside. My dad was driving, and he was a good driver, but we came around a curve on the freeway and the cars in front of us were stopped dead. He had no choice but to hit the brakes, and the bolt holding the hitch to the bumper sheared off. We basically lost the trailer. He pulled over to the side using the chain- it was a small island where two freeways merged. This was in the middle of Los Angeles at 1 the morning. There was no one to call, and no one to help. He managed to fix the bolt, but couldn't lift the trailer back onto the hirtch - the crank and wheel had been broken in the process. ANyway, we had to unload both horses on a square of concrete about 10 x 10 (It seemed smaller, that was for sure) that was surrounded by fast moving cars. I had to hold the horses - who of course, hated each other- whille he tried to rehitch the trailer. Both horses were 'hot", scared by all of the lights, and of course, the idiots that honked as they went by. WHat a nightmare. Thankfully, the horses had had enough and hopped back in the trailer as soon as they were asked.


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## barrelbeginner (Jan 31, 2012)

That would suck.. thats the one thing that I get nervous about.. putting horses in horse trailers.. when they dont get along.. lol..


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## BigBenLoverforLife (Sep 19, 2012)

These are reasons I don't ride my own horse on the road... but any way one day we were riding my friends horse double for a quick walk down the road and as we were walking a group of high school guys were in a yard, having a party since it was about 8 at night, middle of summer so it wasn't dark, and started to follow us, they made it look not so noticeable, but it was!! Then they all ran at us, we took off down the side of the road but after a few seconds they stoped, no biggie so we kept on going with our ride then a a while later we were about a 3-4 min canter or so away from her house and here they come again, but pilled in the back of a pick-up truck, we stood our ground, then turned around and started to walk home, when they started to rev the truck, which didn't fase her horse at all, then they were say 500 feet away from us when they basically put the peddle to metal, thank god the truck spun for a while becuase it gave us enough time to get a head start home, thank goodness her horse is a barrel racer and knows how to move! As we were almost to her house one of them reached out to try to grab me in which I almost fell of trying stop him, her horse was great this whole time, then I realized turning into her culvasic was gonna be a problem at this speed, we cut through a neighbors yard, which later we went up to apoliize for any hoof prints and explained what happened, so then we made it to her drive way and they left us alone. Her mom called the cops but they couldnt find them again, then it took about an hour to walk her horse out, but thank heavens for him, I dont want to think what would have happened of we were riding bikes, or walking like we planned on.


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## HollyBubbles (Jun 22, 2009)

iRide Ponies said:


> xD. I'm talking about 90mile, the big long one up the top of the north? People treat it like its a giant yellow highway.


yeah i know the one lol, i'm in the NI aswell, but not up there.


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## iRide Ponies (Aug 10, 2012)

HollyBubbles said:


> yeah i know the one lol, i'm in the NI aswell, but not up there.


Lucky, are you down Auckland way? I use to live there. Miss it like anything.


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## HollyBubbles (Jun 22, 2009)

iRide Ponies said:


> Lucky, are you down Auckland way? I use to live there. Miss it like anything.


Even further down lol, closer to Wellington than Auckland


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## Jessabel (Mar 19, 2009)

I was out riding with some girlfriends a few years ago and we had a car full of teenagers come up behind us and honk. My horse bucked, but I held on. The other horses were fine, thank goodness. I thought for sure my idiot horse was going to run out in the road and get us both killed, but it wasn't that bad.

Other than that, we've just had the usual jerks flying by at 55 miles an hour and not even giving us a wide berth. That's why I don't ride along the road anymore. People are d*ckwads.


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## Sunny (Mar 26, 2010)

The scariest one was when I was about 12 or so. My friend and I were cantering down a dirt road where there are almost never cars. We were not expecting a car to come flying around the corner, but it did. We both BARELY made it out of the road. If we had been just an inch closer from the center line, we wouldn't have had time to get out of the way and we would have been crushed. It was terrifying!

Then a few months ago I was riding Sun down the road in front of the barn. It's pretty quiet and people are usually very polite. Then, I hear a loud truck coming up behind us. Sunny grew up by a very busy highway so passing vehicles don't bother her, but I had no clue what she would do if a truck did something stupid beside us. The truck stops by us and it's full of ********, unsurprisingly. He starts to rev the engine and says, "Hey, wanna race?" I say, "No thank you." He says, "Come on!" and that's when I snap. I yelled, "If you scare my horse, I swear to God I will hop of my horse and beat the crap out of you."
The guy looked shocked and said, "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to scare your horse," and drove off.
WIN!


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## Casey02 (Sep 20, 2011)

Uhhh my horse was hit and killed. Worst car/horse experience ever.....


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## Shoebox (Apr 18, 2012)

Casey02 said:


> Uhhh my horse was hit and killed. Worst car/horse experience ever.....


I think you win this thread... Unfortunately... I'm sorry that happened. It makes me second guess riding down roads.


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## Casey02 (Sep 20, 2011)

Thanks shoebox.. I wasn't riding her though. It was a bad night and the fence didn't get locked right and her and one other horse got out. She ended up being the one that got hit and she died about 2 minutes after I got there im just glad I got to see her one last time  That was one of the worst nights ever. That happened just over two years ago though. Sure do miss her, she was a great horse and put up with so much  I know it wasn't while riding but that was the worst car/ horse experience for me!


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