Road Hacking How To & Tips

[kaya842]

Hunter/ Jumper rider here but posting over here in hopes of getting more feedback.

We bought our farm about 3 months ago and have been focused on clearing and cross fencing and the like which means I won’t have an arena / flat AND cleared area to ride in for a while. I can ride around the areas that are cleared, but they are pretty steep hills. I don’t mind working on them 1-2 times a week and trailering out 1-2 times a week, but it is looking like the best option for my sanity and my horses is road hacking. She has been ridden in parades and down roads before, but not really road hacking - more so using the road to get for the barn to a trail or arena and back. We have several quiet neighborhoods around that seem like good options (fairly rural area with paved roads).

My questions are:

1. We would have to cross train tracks to get anywhere (they are inactive tracks). Is it safe to do so?
2. Can you keep a horse jumping fit with 1-2 days of cavaletti work on the “flat” (our hills at home) and road hacking at a walk/ trot?
   I can trailer out to an arena on weekends but can’t do it for both days just because it would be cost prohibitive and time consuming. There is a small park nearby with trails, but I am not sure how long they are.
3. She is barefoot and we have Easyboot Trails which I would use to keep her from wearing her hooves down too much/ getting sore. She’s been exposed to traffic (and loads of other stuff). Is there anything else I need to do to “prepare” her for road riding?

[Feliz]

Hey, I’ve also just moved on to our own farm and am doing lots of road riding as no arena (and no budget for one at this stage). My road riding tips are:

Especially to start with - pick your ride times carefully. If you’re in an area that people are commuting to/from you want to avoid those times. You may also want to think about the light/sun strike and avoid times where that could be a problem for drivers. Are you in an area that people are used to seeing horses and a fairly considerate? Or on the edge of town where drivers will be clueless and careless?

Deck yourself and your horse out in hi-viz gear - it makes a massive difference to visibility but also in how drivers react. I don’t think people realise how hard it is to see horses/bikes/walkers on the road sides - even a grey/white horse can be surprisingly hard to see if the light is odd or it’s in shadows from road side trees etc. I’ve noticed that more drivers slow & give me extra room when we’re all decked out vs just a vest. My horse wears boots, a tail wrap thing & a breastplate, I wear a hat cover & vest - all in fluro yellow with reflective strips.

Scope out your planned routes carefully - I thought our no exit, quiet road would be easy to ride down - it’s actually quite deceptive. There are 3 spots where there is no visibility as the road goes up and down little rises - but people drive fast as it’s straight. It’s not a big problem, I just pay attention and carefully choose where to cross the road - but it took me by surprise that I hadn’t noticed these issues prior to riding it - and I do a lot of road riding.

Train tracks should be fine to cross as long as your horse isn’t a total clutz.

Fitness-wise I’m sure you’ll be fine - heaps of people in the UK compete to quite high levels without a huge amount of arena riding.

[Scribbler]

I rode extensively on roads as a kid, avoid it as a returning rider!

I would drive the planned route slowly and walk parts of it on foot to get a good feel for the possible hazards.

Don’t get caught out after dark especially on short winter days when dark coincides with rush hour!

Crossing railroad tracks is fine.

[SuzieQNutter]

How to.

The inexperienced horse goes closer to the traffic than the older trained horse, otherwise the younger horse will shy into the other horse and rider and push them into the traffic. You prefer them to shy away from the traffic, pushing the other horse and rider away from the traffic.

ALWAYS halt for at least 30 seconds or more before crossing a road.

ALWAYS walk the last half hour home.

There is a rule about never cantering towards home. You must be very experienced and be a trainer of horses before you break that rule.

If any trouble with train tracks, lead over the first time.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Certain pavement is stupidly slick—learn what it looks like and avoid it…build up slowly walking roads. I typically just walk on pavement but regardless you need to give her time to adjust to the harder surface.

You should be able to keep her fit for jumping. Walking and hour a day can put a lot of base fitness on…more than you will expect…and adding hill work will get her hinny strong. Focus on keeping her straight and working over her back.

[GraceLikeRain]

Bucking strap or neck strap, pepper spray strapped to the outside of your boot, keep your phone on you, wear high visibility clothing, have a rehearsed brief response for strangers wanting to interact with your horse in situations where it is unsafe, and listen to your gut always.

I hacked out 1-2x/week for several years alone without incident. My favorite memories with my mare are riding on a five mile loop past cow pastures, through neighborhoods, and along wooded areas. Her fitness was never better than when we were doing that loop and most of it was at the walk. That being said, right before I lost my mare I survived an attempted assault. I’m a secure rider but getting grabbed by one leg from ground level is very unbalancing. Predators may not be dissuaded by a 1,200 lb horse and may use it as a ruse to get unusually close to a solo female. After that, I made it a practice to keep at least a 10 foot buffer between me and a pedestrian.

There are several apps that can track you and notify select people if you stop moving for a certain amount of time. That may be worth looking into if you become disconnected from your horse or have a roadside injury.

[MissCoco]

I hack out down country roads a lot with my lease mare, we are very lucky that her owner lives in a very rural area, so it’s very rare a driver will go by who doesn’t recognize us, and most will slow wayyy down to pass us. We stop to let cars pass.
Sometimes a driver will not want to pass us and will just stop (often hilariously far down the road) we will just keep walking till they are close enough to see me signaling them to “come on”

When pedestrians have weird stuff with them I will call out and say “HI! How are you today?” so she knows that is a person approaching on a bike/dragging their trashbin/with a triple-wide stroller. If they don’t respond I will say “My horse is not used to seeing people [with object], can you talk so she knows you are a human?”
That usually snaps people out of their bubble, but I am sometimes surprised how oblivious people can be to the fact that they are worrying a horse as they zoom by on their bike (or their utterly weird one-wheeled, light-up, skateboard-type-thing).
When the odd things do show up, I’m incredibly thankful that her owner trained her that whoa means whoa, and that she is a spook-in-place sort. So we might have all four feet off the ground and do a bit of a skitter, but spin-and-bolt isn’t her typical fear response (knock on wood).
We don’t trot on pavement, but we will on hard-packed dirt roads, I don’t know how much softer they are than pavement.

When we started doing road hacks I would lead her on foot, she is one who is more confident with a person on the ground than a rider. It also helped me because I knew she was familiar with our route and felt confident on it.
I always text someone before I get on, if I’m alone I always do our “regular route” so the people I text know when to get concerned if they don’t hear from me.

The tip to be careful of nightfall is a good one, it gets dark deceptively fast in the winters in our area, and drivers really don’t expect to see horses out, so even in middling light, you might be a pretty confusing object to a driver.

[Doodlebug1]

@SuzieQNutter

How to.

The inexperienced horse goes closer to the traffic than the older trained horse, otherwise the younger horse will shy into the other horse and rider and push them into the traffic. You prefer them to shy away from the traffic, pushing the other horse and rider away from the traffic.

ALWAYS halt for at least 30 seconds or more before crossing a road.

ALWAYS walk the last half hour home.

There is a rule about never cantering towards home. You must be very experienced and be a trainer of horses before you break that rule.

If any trouble with train yracks, lead over the first time.

I dunno. In the UK everyone in the Pony Club has to pass what was called the Riding and Road Safety test, now called something else… but we learn to always put the more experienced horse on the outside with the inexperienced one on the verge. Most spooking hazards are on the verge (pedestrians, ditches, discarded bottles etc) so the older horse is used as a buffer to prevent a swing into traffic.

We also dont have an arbitrary 30 sec stop rule, particularly at a yield sign. The horse should of course learn not to fidget but that’s a gradual process and if you can keep moving and not frustrate traffic behind you, then we are taught that is better than looking and waiting at a clear road and then moving just because 30 secs is up.

Walking 30 mins? Yes, if you’ve been hunting all day or doing some serious galloping, but for a basic hack? Huh? Especially if your horse gets turnout after being ridden. If you had a lesson, would you walk for 30 mins of it at the end? Maybe, certainly with the advanced event horses if they had a grid session, sure. Going for a hack, not so much, that doesn’t mean we trot all the way to the barn of course the last section is a walk home, but it might be 5 mins if there’s only been a small trot, it might be 20. A 30 minute rule seems a bit excessive. It’s probably fairer to say walk roughly the last mile home.

OK. I guess you are joking, right? Because if you are 30 mins away from home and you have to walk, you reckon your horse will freak out if it is 45 mins from home and asked to canter, because its facing home but will be fine if it’s >30 mins away (2+ miles of active walking) but facing away from home 🤣

[hb]

I used to board at a barn where we could road hack about a mile to a set of really nice trails. We had to cross a railroad track to get to the trails. The tracks were set up on a gravel berm so the horses had to lift their legs over and be careful where they stepped. Before taking a new horse out to the trails I would build a grid of jump poles in the arena at home that approximated the spacing of the tracks and walk through them a few times. Never had a horse balk at crossing the tracks the first time, whether it was me or the horse that gained confidence from the home practice I don’t know but it worked.

That same neighborhood now has way too much traffic to road hack in anymore. Sad.

[SuzieQNutter]

@Doodlebug1

I dunno. In the UK everyone in the Pony Club has to pass what was called the Riding and Road Safety test, now called something else… but we learn to always put the more experienced horse on the outside with the inexperienced one on the verge. Most spooking hazards are on the verge (pedestrians, ditches, discarded bottles etc) so the older horse is used as a buffer to prevent a swing into traffic.

We also dont have an arbitrary 30 sec stop rule, particularly at a yield sign. The horse should of course learn not to fidget but that’s a gradual process and if you can keep moving and not frustrate traffic behind you, then we are taught that is better than looking and waiting at a clear road and then moving just because 30 secs is up.

Walking 30 mins? Yes, if you’ve been hunting all day or doing some serious galloping, but for a basic hack? Huh? Especially if your horse gets turnout after being ridden. If you had a lesson, would you walk for 30 mins of it at the end? Maybe, certainly with the advanced event horses if they had a grid session, sure. Going for a hack, not so much, that doesn’t mean we trot all the way to the barn of course the last section is a walk home, but it might be 5 mins if there’s only been a small trot, it might be 20. A 30 minute rule seems a bit excessive. It’s probably fairer to say walk roughly the last mile home.

OK. I guess you are joking, right? Because if you are 30 mins away from home and you have to walk, you reckon your horse will freak out if it is 45 mins from home and asked to canter, because its facing home but will be fine if it’s >30 mins away (2+ miles of active walking) but facing away from home 🤣

A young inexperienced horse can push your buffer and the rider into traffic.

The others have nothing to do with physical it is mental. Horses have zero Road Sence. Zero. Nada. None. The same is true for cats and kangaroos.

So halting before a Road is so that a beginner is not fighting to stop a horse crossing a road when traffic is flowing. The horse is used to halting and will halt easier and be calmer doing so, as it is the usual thing to do. They will have to halt for longer than 30 seconds if it is a busy road and there is traffic flowing. It doesn’t have to be 30 seconds, use your discretion.

The not cantering home is also for beginners. As you know a horse changes when coming home. The canter towards home becomes a bolt that they can’t control. The horse will cross roads which are slippery. A horse used to walking home on a long rein, will walk home on a long rein without jogging. Even an OTTB.

As I also said an experienced trainer of horses can break these rules. All horses are different. My tb I do trot and canter towards home. He does not think that as an invitation to get faster. That does not mean that a beginner should.

Just think of teenagers on ottbs that nonhorsey parents drop off at self care and leave for the day, not experienced people coming home from fox hunting.

[Willesdon]

High viz is very important: wearing it gives a vehicle driver several more seconds to process and respond to your presence. If you are in an area where seeing a horse on the road is unusual, then hi viz is doubly important.

Riding on a road is no worse than riding on a trail - except for cars. Different surfaces, undulations, shadows, spooky bins and cows… It is very educational for horse and rider. It is a very effective way to get a horse and rider fit.

Use your ears as well as your eyes and listen for hazards as well as looking for them. Your horse will certainly be aware of things that you won’t notice. Often, horses are much more alert and forward going outside and you need to take this into account.

Most horses are familiar with vehicles, dogs, seeing crowds of horses and people when at shows. Don’t worry too much about seeing the same on a road: the horse picks up on your confidence. Chat to it as you ride, talking means you have to breathe!

Start by walking. Only move up to trotting after a couple of weeks at a walk. Avoid cantering on tarmac but if there is good grass…

Be aware of rubbish, garbage, random things on the ground. Glass, drink cans, food bags are flung out of the windows of passing cars. Always check your horse’s feet carefully after riding along the road.

[FatDinah]

I had a terrible fall this spring when a mountain biker raced up behind us on a dirt road without warning. Really, I think horses react more to things come nf up behind than what’s in front of them.

[Doodlebug1]

@SuzieQNutter

A young inexperienced horse can push your buffer and the rider into traffic.

The others have nothing to do with physical it is mental. Horses have zero Road Sence. Zero. Nada. None. The same is true for cats and kangaroos.

So halting before a Road is so that a beginner is not fighting to stop a horse crossing a road when traffic is flowing. The horse is used to halting and will halt easier and be calmer doing so, as it is the usual thing to do. They will have to halt for longer than 30 seconds if it is a busy road and there is traffic flowing. It doesn’t have to be 30 seconds, use your discretion.

The not cantering home is also for beginners. As you know a horse changes when coming home. The canter towards home becomes a bolt that they can’t control. The horse will cross roads which are slippery. A horse used to walking home on a long rein, will walk home on a long rein without jogging. Even an OTTB.

As I also said an experienced trainer of horses can break these rules. All horses are different. My tb I do trot and canter towards home. He does not think that as an invitation to get faster. That does not mean that a beginner should.

Just think of teenagers on ottbs that nonhorsey parents drop off at self care and leave for the day, not experienced people coming home from fox hunting.

1. The OP isn’t a beginner so why is the advice you give allegedly aimed at that level.

2. The Pony Club does teach beginners and what I was saying was in line with that.

3. Yes a young horse ‘could’ push an experienced horse but the likelihood of this is much less than the inexperienced horse spinning into traffic. For the same reason if you ride and lead, the unridden horse goes on the verge side, if you have a novice rider, they too go verge side. The more experienced combo takes the risk of being the protector. The more experienced combo can also decide the best way to cross a road, not build in a rule designed to frustrate traffic behind you and create tension.

As I said, this is advice given here in the UK. Maybe you get different advice. But thanks for explaining horses have no road sense, after 40 years of riding on the roads I’d have just never figured that out without you saying.

[conniemary]

I hack on roads a lot. Wear hi-vis (to help you be seen), and put hi-vis on your horse (people in my area find it amusing, so they slow down to look).

I also carry a long dressage whip on the traffic side, and hold it out sideways when cars are passing. This ensures cars are more than 1 metre away - without it I once had someone pass so close I could have kicked their car with my foot.

I don’t trot on paved roads, only walk. As others have said, walking is great for fitness, especially if the roads are not flat.

[RiderInTheRain]

I just moved to a new area and hack out frequently along quiet mostly paved country roads. Many have a wide grassy shoulder which allows for some trotting and cantering on a steady, non spooky horse.

I wear a blaze orange high viz vest and my horse wears a matching blaze orange quarter sheet. These items do double duty when we trail ride during bow season as well. For road riding I also wear an LED vest, and my horse wears LED “tail lights” as well which are nice on gray, cloudy days. I wanted to get the LED breastcollar too but couldn’t find one in pony size so instead I ordered an LED belt marketed for runners and my pony wears that as a neck strap instead. I’ve actually had multiple drivers stop and compliment me on how visible we are!

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is to try and get your horse comfortable with dogs. We have some barking or chasing (playful, nonaggressive) dogs in the neighborhood. My horses foxhunt so they really don’t care and I have found it helpful to carry my hunt whip as using it as a noisemaker has been helpful in sending a few over enthusiastic canines back home!

[Arlomine]

When I am on country roads with no margin of error on the sides (there are DEEP irrigation ditches three feet off the gravel on both sides of the road around my farm…), I keep an eye out for cars who are going superfast and show no signs of slowing down after I wave the arm in the universal “slow down” motion.
if I’m feeling like they are oblivious,
I make sure they have time to see me, and I put my horse sideways In the middle of the road with my arm out like the Supremes.
Of course they stop, sometimes they’re a little pissed but then I make a really nice faces and say thank you million times and if they have their windows down I said thank you so much for slowing down it’s very scary to my horse if you go by fast.

Its better than being flung into a ditch.

[SuzieQNutter]

@Doodlebug1

1. The OP isn’t a beginner so why is the advice you give allegedly aimed at that level.

2. The Pony Club does teach beginners and what I was saying was in line with that.

3. Yes a young horse ‘could’ push an experienced horse but the likelihood of this is much less than the inexperienced horse spinning into traffic. For the same reason if you ride and lead, the unridden horse goes on the verge side, if you have a novice rider, they too go verge side. The more experienced combo takes the risk of being the protector. The more experienced combo can also decide the best way to cross a road, not build in a rule designed to frustrate traffic behind you and create tension.

As I said, this is advice given here in the UK. Maybe you get different advice. But thanks for explaining horses have no road sense, after 40 years of riding on the roads I’d have just never figured that out without you saying.

The OP did not say how experienced and if experienced wouldn’t have asked the question.

I am in Australia and have no experience in England.

I always take a dressage whip with me to take down spider webs and to wave around the necks and my face and arms to keep flies away.

I ducked under all the spider webs the first time I went to Friday Night Showjumping. I had every one of them in my face on the way home when I could not see them.

Horses having no traffic sence is one reason why they will not take over from guide dogs. Horses and ponies can be trained as Service animals, but you cannot teach them to not cross a road if you tell them to cross a road and a car is approaching.

A trained guide dog will refuse to walk across a road when told to cross a road and a car is coming.

I had Pepper halted at a quiet road. Usually one car passes and we would cross. This time it was a prime mover with 2 trailers. Pep waited for the prime mover to pass and without my intervention, he went to cross while the first trailer was still in front of us, I intervened before he walked.

I actually saw the last kangaroo on the road. I stopped. I was stopped when it turned and jumped straight into the side of the car. Sigh. That is quite expensive damage, which is much better than hitting them at speed, if they jump in front of your car with no warning and you hit them at the top of their jump, they can come through the windscreen and kill you.

If you and they are not dead, you now have a very strong wild animal in the car trying to escape and you will be injured more.

[Doodlebug1]

Theres some good info in the leaflet at the bottom of this page: https://roadsafety.scot/topics/horse-and-road-safety/

[Seagram]

I’m lucky to live in a very horse friendly neighborhood, but one thing I always do is wave at every single car passing me in any direction. This draws attention to me, slows most people down, and also maintains friendly interactions with the people in the cars and my horse and I. I have the rare idiots who still speed past, but most people react by slowing way down, which is what I want.

[quietann]

@Seagram

I’m lucky to live in a very horse friendly neighborhood, but one thing I always do is wave at every single car passing me in any direction. This draws attention to me, slows most people down, and also maintains friendly interactions with the people in the cars and my horse and I. I have the rare idiots who still speed past, but most people react by slowing way down, which is what I want.

This!

I (thank G-d) don’t have to ride on the roads, but I do have to cross them, one a 40 MPH road that can get a lot of traffic, and the other a 20 MPH with less traffic (but everyone speeds) and poor visibility as it is curvy and there are big trees on both sides. For the former, I’ve figured out the best places to cross the road – best visibility, no side roads nearby. I wear high-vis or something close (my safety vest is dark pink!). I halt, start waving, wait about 15-20 seconds, then cross if cars have stopped for me. I am lucky it’s a very horsey area so usually someone stops