Why horses and cyclists don't mix!

For those of us who cycle on country lanes (or suburban routes which connect bridleways) meeting horses is a frequent occurrence. Cyclists and horse-riders deal with such meetings in a variety of ways.

Some cyclists treat horses in exactly the same way as they would treat a slower-moving cyclist (but perhaps with less courtesy); that is, they pass without slowing down, often at considerable speed, and giving no more than a metre of clearance.
Others slow down and pass more widely, but without hesitation.
Some cyclists show more caution, waiting behind to be called past (and probably wondering why they are being ignored).
The final group also hang back but call out to the riders on approach.

If you look at the above options, you can probably guess which method is preferable to the horse-rider, even without guidance from a semi-expert like me (twenty-five years experience as a horse-riding instructor, for starters).

But do you know why it matters how you approach horses, whether led or ridden? Is it for your safety or theirs? Or both?

Many people who know very little about horses can still give you one or two pieces of information about them:

they bite at one end and kick at the other (often true, though rarely through malice)
they are very easily frightened (also true, unfortunately).

What many equine-ignorant people don't realise is that the most dangerous thing about horses is that they move quickly when unnerved, don't look where they are going and are bloody big.....even the little ones!

In fact, the average pony - no pony owner considers their equine average, but you know what I mean - weighs about a third of a tonne. A medium sized riding horse, like an Arab, weighs just shy of half a tonne and a heavyweight hunter-type would top six or seven hundred kilos. If you're thinking, 'Crikey!' you're dead right: you don't want to be jumped on by one of those!

To understand why such a big animal is so nervous, you have to remember that horses are grazing animals (herbivores) and, like most herbivores, they evolved living in herds and trying not to get eaten by predators. The herd survives by running away. If one horse (or Zebra, for instance - same family) sees or hears something it doesn't recognise then, just like a rabbit, it runs away and all the others go with it. When they get a safe distance away they look and see what it was that startled them and if it turns out to be just a deer, then 'Oh well, better safe than sorry.' If it was a lion, on the other hand..... Well, a couple of thousand years of domestication haven't made much difference, especially since we breed race horses for their running-away ability and then we make the common working horses faster and nicer to ride by crossing them with the flighty race horses!

What has this lesson in equine evolution/psychology to do with bicycles?

Well, for a start, there are far fewer bicycles than cars on our roads, even on the back lanes, so the horses get used to the cars pretty quickly. The thing about cars is that they are noisy but, once you are used to the noise, you can always hear them coming. Nothing stealthy about cars....not like a predator....not like a bicycle.

Bicycles sneak up on you. Your rider doesn't hear them (she's too busy gassing with her mates) and neither do you because, for one thing, you're listening for that noisy internal combustion engine and, for another, your rider's making so much bloody racket!

The first you know is when you see the critter out of the corner of your eye (being a horse and having your eyes set to the sides of your head, you can see right round to your rear). If your head is turned slightly to the left, you see it out of your left eye and may therefore get fooled into thinking it is on your left.

So what does our horse or pony do?

Well, some of them are laid back, confident and used to bikes anyway, so they barely bat an eyelash. Some give a bit of a start, which unnerves the rider but does no real harm. But, just occasionally, one of them nearly jumps out of it's skin.

It leaps forwards or sideways - and remember they sometimes get the idea that the cycle is on their left, so which way do they jump? Right. Right on to the bicycle, in fact. OK, it doesn't happen that often, but it's not a flight of fancy on my part, it does happen and it's not pleasant when it does. More often it's just an unpleasant experience for horse and rider, especially if the road is wet, when the tyres make that hissing noise (like a snake - horses really are that stupid) and the sound scares them before they even see the vehicle.

However, in rare cases the nervous, perhaps inexperienced, horse may bolt - that is, run away very fast - and that can lead to it slipping over or getting entangled with a car or even just the rider falling off.

The final possibility is that you get really close before they get startled so, with 'flight' from you now out of the question, they resort to 'fight' and kick out.

Now you can see why you call out on approach - immediately the horse identifies you as a human.
You wait for the rider to notice you - they may need to take a stronger hold on their mount or to reassure them.
Finally, you pass slowly and as far away as possible to minimise possible distress and give you the best chance of staying out of range if things do go wrong.

I know that some riders are neither polite nor appreciative. They don't acknowledge the cyclist's presence, much less say thank you for being passed with care, but that isn't the horse's fault - it didn't ask to be bought by an ignorant person! And we're not all like that (trust me).

So pass carefully out of consideration for the horse's feelings, for the rider's safety and, finally, for your own.

Sara Hickie