linfordlunchbox said:
Horses are allowed on the road because they are under the control of the riders.
Not all the time they're not!
I've seen a horse in a large group of horses rearing up and the rider was struggling to control it, it wouldn't stop rearing its front legs up and waving them about.
This was on a canal towpath, and it was doing this before I approached, so it wasn't me that caused it. I pulled in the side and held myh bike on the verge as close in to the hedge as I could while they passed, and they still frowned at me as they passed.
This although anecdotal is not atypical of the attitudes, and just this one little thing can make you angry as you continue your journey and take away faith in humanity's propensity to be nice to one another, and removes all respect horses.
linfordlunchbox said:
If a cyclist were to act in a way to deliberately frighten the horse, then both the horse and its rider could be put in extreme danger. They are fight or flight animals, and 99 times out of 100, they would run from people on cycles acting in an aggressive manner.
But it's perfectly reasonable to expect a cyclist to "be there". Simply being there, or even moving along slowly, quietly and considerately,
doesn't constitute 'behaving in an aggressive manner', and if this is deemed too aggressive for the horse, then there's not really much else the cyclist can do about that, short of
not 'being there', and if this is the case then it's the horse that has got the problem, not the other way round, and therefore in my opinion it's the horse that shouldn't be there.
I'm not wanting to have a go at you linf, and I'm trying not to make this an ad hominem argument, so if you're a considerate horse rider who trains your horse well, is tolerant of other road/bridlepath users and appreciates courtesy rather than frowns when it is afforded to you, then I've no problem with you whatsoever. My beef is just with the fact that if you are those things, then unfortunately according to my experience you're in a minority, and your fellow equestrianists are letting you down as they're doing your side no favours with their bad attitudes..