Quite often when I’m out and about on the byways and bridleways in Essex I’ll pass horse-riders. I’m curious, but never seem to get the opportunity to ask:

What is a typical horse ride? Do you go for an hour, 5 hours? and how far would you cover?

I realise this is a bit of a “how long is a piece of string?” but I’d still be curious to see the answers.

Rob

Most organised hacks from a stable yard would probably be about an hour and not cover more than 5 miles, depending on the competence of the riders. Individual riders might go out for a couple of hours and cover between 5 & 10 miles. I have, in the past, led long distance trail rides and we would ride around 5-6 hours a day for 20 – 25 miles, also depending on terrain.

Thats a horse equestion surely?

It is a bit. A hack can be a couple of hours, with a bit of walking, a bit of trotting, maybe some ‘jumping’* and a canter/gallop, or it could be longer. I’ve done a day out on one as part of my honeymoon and it was fun, but you can get a little tired and sore if you’re not good at sitting on them properly.

* more just the horse walking over things with a bit of a jump.

Speak up, can’t hear you!

According to the many westerns I`ve seen, a horse can travel at full gallop for several days and cover 2 – 300 miles in that time.

Fact!

I always like to compare my cost per active hour actually riding a bike with that of horse owners riding their horses and revel in how low cost my hobby is 🙂

my wife can seemingly spend the whole day with her horses. no idea how far she goes on a hack (although I keep telling her to strava it).

She does the occasional organised pleasure ride (think horse enduro), which are about 10-15 miles and take around 2- 3 hours riding time. but a whole day of faffing time.

A couple of years ago she rode the pennine bridleway over a week. Her longest day was around 25 miles.

Apparently dick turpin rode to york from Hempstead in essex in one night. it killed his horse though.*

*this is a alternative fact.

It’s time dependent.
I used to ride mine after work in the lighter months for about an hour.
At weekends it could be anything from an hour to 4 hours.

They can get a bit frisky if not ridden regularly.

think horse enduro

Horses in flouro pyjamas? 🙄

And if you think mountain bikers lifestyle vehicles are expensive, wait until you see some of the horse lorry camper things 😯

They can get a bit frisky if not ridden regularly.

must……resist……

Thanks for all the replies.

How many times per week does a horse need to be deliberately exercised?

Not thinking of getting one, just curious.

Rob

Middle Earth to Mordor – about 3 hours of odeon time.

Thats a horse equestion surely?

touché

As for deliberate exercise … again, it depends mainly on what level of general exercise you do with it. If you’re only out once in a while for a hack, then thats all it really needs. If you’re into all the eventing and big stuff, then it’ll need regular exercising to keep it at that standard.

Much like biking really. You can bimble on minimal fitness. Want to be competitive? Then train for it.

As for how much time the wife spends at the stable … I just don’t know how she does it. What takes me 30 to 40 minutes to sort out the horse seems to take her 3 hours ???

I was chatting to someone today who rode through the Outer Hebrides last year. There are regular cross-scotland rides. The access law applies to equestrians as much as it does to walkers and cyclists and I always take account of locked gates and stiles when I’m doing path surveys.

These are very much the exception though. Most would consider one hour of riding to be about average. If you think prepping and cleaning a bike before and after a ride is time consuming then don’t even think about a horse 🙂

I used to ride a lot, long time ago now but used to do the 3 day eventing stuff.. not professionally just the local ned club and point to point (my favourite)
Hacks (definitely Hacks) used to consist of a couple of hours depending on terrain, think of it in a similar way to XC or CXer where you’d hack off road along bridleways linked to lanes and a loop or P2P and trailer home.. Couple of hours, maybe three.. never less than one because of all the hassle getting the Ned ready.. invariably the mucking out takes the time and tack cleaning and you’ve got yourself a full day (almost)
We’d sometimes ride out in a group if on a local Hack, 2-3-4 of us, choose a route then go frolicking over fields and hedges and slide and skid most of the way.. Rain never bothered us, certainly doesn’t much bother Neds unless it’s sleet then they get a bit frumpy, but riding out in the sunshine or spring or autumn high up on the back of a Ned is a truly wonderful experience.. I do miss that.
Despite the altercations some have with cycling and we with Neds on the lanes and such we’re not too different a breed, the outdoors and faffing are two commonalities we share.. so when out and you come across a Ned and rider just say Hi.. be nice because they’re nice people too.

I always like to compare my cost per active hour actually riding a bike with that of horse owners riding their horses and revel in how low cost my hobby is

I find it’s not uncommon for horse owners to be in denial about the mounting cost of livery month to month before you start on vet bills. Dunno what prices are like elsewhere but I gather around South Yorkshire £400 a month per horse is pretty normal for full livery (so, a stable, food for horse, cleaning horse stable most days and access to some exercise facility). That’s about £5k a year just to keep the horse alive. Pass me the expensive frame websites… 😆

We are DIY livery … so doing all the work ourselves. I reckon the whole cost per month for running the horse ( down to including petrol to the place and back etc ) runs to between £500 and £600 per month.

My wife has a figure of about £300 in her head … until I list it all out to her.

To be fair, when she moans about me having more than a couple of bikes in the garage, I simply reply that most bikes of mine cost less than 2 months of running the horse.

Another question (sorry). Do you ever, when riding your horse, really give it full beans?

Is this considered a bad thing?

In all the horses/riders I’ve met only 1 was going full-gas. She was quite apologetic, but I thought it was great. I’d love to see it more often.

That said, horses scare me. I have thought of riding lessons as a way to get over it.

Rob

Checking my wife’s strava (can you believe they don’t have a horse option?) she does around 20km at this time of year. I know in Summer she’ll do around 40-50km on a long day. When we go on holiday our rides can be anywhere from 10km to 50km in a day but it depends on the terrain and horses. I believe my wife’s longest ride is 80km.

My wife likes to ride endurance. Her current horse is a loan from someone who can’t excercise it enough. Ex international horse (and rider) that used to race up to 160km in a day.

Owner, not wife on horse.

You can occasionally give it full beans. But like a human they have a limit sprint/gallop. Normally alternating the pace over a longer ride is the quickest way to get somewhere. Galloping is fun, in a group or on a fast horse even more so.

No, I never did. Point 2 Point is all about saving your house over the course.. Yes you can gallop but thats not “full gas” thats galloping.. racing thats a different training regime and a whole load of care and pain and I’ve no experience at it.
If honking over fields and then jumping fences and such then yes it felt like full gas but invariably you’re pulling your horse up to control it because you don’t want to be flung off when it decides it’s changing course of doesn’t like the look of the next gate or whatever..
Have I been deliberately flown form a horse, God yes.. one I owned was a fanatically branch finder.. anything to get me whacked to hit by low branches or odd shaped trees and it would head straight for them.. bastard nearly killed me once hacking through the forests behind Ludlow Castle on a P2P event.. git plowed right into a low tree and try as I might to slow it or attempt to stop it had no control over it.. bastard thing, nearly got garrotted.. thats why you pull them back, not only that but they don’t always know when to stop.. you can let hem run dn they will go.. until they collapse (some, well the ones I’ve known)

Time breakdown after studying the missus..

80% Shovelling Shit
18% brushing
2% Riding

Edit: OP Her far too infrequent hack for the amount of work is usually a couple of hours

I had a horse for a couple of years. Hacks were 60-90mins usually. We were incredibly lucky as my wife’s boss owns a farm with a cross country course so once I’d learned to jump, many of our rides degenerated into flat out races 😆

Drag hunting (existed long before the Fox hunting ban and has always been about hunting fake scent) is the craziest thing I’ve done. It’s a well known way to spoil your horse for anything sensible as it’s flat out from start to finish. That lot make a Cat 4 at Hillingdon look like a well drilled police motorbike unit 😆
I hit a 5’6 Hunter Trial jump when they met at Kingsclere and thought I was a gonna. Old Nosey found extra legs and saved my life as I clung to his neck with no reins!

The hassle to reward ratio is crazily in favour of hassle and whilst I enjoyed looking after him, when my wife got ill, something had to give so we sold him.

We have four ponies now and I’d like to get an old plodder so I can ride with my wife and son.

Driving is another level and makes just riding the bloody things look quick and easy 😆

I’ve told a colleague to get a few bikes, it’s much cheaper.

Even when bikes go wrong, horses go wrong lots more. Her horse had a horrible ‘foot’ (SPD ?) injury a few years back – the hoof was split on something in the field – looked a right mess, cost her over £6k to get him fixed. The issue is, he is still a young ‘male’ and is still doing stupid stuff when she isn’t around (lad’s eh !)

We’ve got a ‘stupid young male’ pedigree cat that’s cost us in ‘biting’ the bigger older cat – £80 in anti-biotics…

Bikes are cheap.

crosshair – that’s one big jump.

As for riding flat out. Yes, but mainly when the animal decided it wanted to get home quicker then me. 😀
Back then we had a gallop track (now a John Lewis store), which was great fun.
Mine was kept out at grass, definitely a less expensive way to have a horse, but she was a certain hardy breed that would be fine with being outdoors. Still lots of work though.

crosshair – that’s one big jump.

Not only that, but his elbows are bent. Perhaps needs to replace the bars on his crit bike with a horsey neck.

I always like to compare my cost per active hour actually riding a bike with that of horse owners riding their horses and revel in how low cost my hobby is

Yeah, but… are you factoring in whole of life costs? When your bike finally kicks the bucket, because so much cost of manufacture is on honing away material to make things lighter expensive to manufacture aluminium and titanium frames are worth pretty much bugger all as scrap as theres so little material actually there, steel is worth even less and carbon fibre has no scrap value or even any really recycling options.

However, when your horse breaks down you can eat it. An average size Dobin would keep a family of 4 in lasagne (3 meals a day) for a year.

However, when your horse breaks down you can eat it. An average size Dobin would keep a family of 4 in lasagne (3 meals a day) for a year.

Will taste horrible though, it’ll be way pasta it’s best by then.

lol FifeAndy 😀

I’ll get some Aero reins 😆

I’ve never owned horses and haven’t ridden them much, but I took lessons at a stables where they had some very decent retired competition horses. My instructor pretty soon realised I was quite confident and I moved on from the docile beginners horse very quickly and eventually ended up riding a horse which used to be a top level show jumper. I never learned to jump, so missed out on that experience, but galloped on that and that was quite a ride. As others have said it’s something you only do briefly though.

Which horse are you?
https://www.merlincycles.com/handlebar-heroes-kids-bike-accessory-93111.html

😈

Costs can vary hugely. Livery is really pricey, and some nags need an awful lot of tlc. That £600 per month quoted above is probably easily exceeded…. but not inevitable.

We’re lucky with our two. They live out all year round (our own fields) and are pretty hardy – I’ve just put a lightweight rug over the old mare yesterday, but the youngster will probably go unrugged all winter (unless we get a properly evil spell of weather). One is unshod (only does occasional light work) while the other gets a set of boots (£80) every 12-13 weeks. They’ll have haylage through the winter, one big bale every 10 days or so. Works out at about £400 a year. Most expensive thing is insurance at £750 per year. So for the 2 of them we probably spend about £1,500 per year. Call it £2k if you add in repairs to rugs, fencing, wear and tear on tack, clothes, etc. I should stress, though, they’re just leisure things, ridden once week (maybe twice/week in summer) and no competitions to speak of.

And if you’re just riding for yourself there’s no need to go braiding their manes, painting their nails and polishing all the tack every time you go out. From getting them in from the field to setting off is usually about 15 minutes. Similar after a ride.

If you really want to “give them the beans”, a beach is a good idea. Specially one with soft sand at the top to steer them into when you need them to stop – slows them down pretty quickly! It’s a great feeling being on a strong horse when it pins back its ears and goes for it.

I’d still much rather be out on a bike though!

I once knew a farrier about 30 years ago, a rather good looking young chap he was too. To say that he was very popular with the young ladies at the local yards in north Hampshire would be something of an understatement.

At the time, I was rather envious of his ability to get very laid and recall me considering a career as a farrier too. The smell of burning hooves put me right off the idea, despite the perks.

The reason you’ll rarely see a horse ‘giving it the beans’ is you need lots of space and good ground. Also, any dogs, people, cyclists or animals and the brakes come on immediately.

You’ve got the walk-trot-canter-gallop, and then there seems to be an extra gear found when you find yourself side by side with another horse, they stretch out and get a bit lower, your eyes start running in the wind and you’ll find that although its taken you an hour of walk and trot meandering down the beach a couple of miles, that you get all the way back to the start in about 4 minutes!

The only place I’ve done it is on camber sands beach…you can gallop on the big open areas like the South Downs occasionally but its a measured gallop. When they really go its a bit like a train, it takes quite a while to pull the horse up, partly as she won’t want to stop, and also just the amount of time needed to scrub off the speed 🙂

(and then there is always the horrifying worry of injuring them…broken foot bones, over-reaching (kicking yourself in the heel) which can cause catastrophic ligament damage, joint and muscle damage, ££££££)