Why is there so much anger towards horse riders on the roads?
I own a horse, work with horses and regularly ride on the roads. Between my own somewhat regular interactions with bad drivers and comments I see made towards us on here, TikTok etc, why are people so angry about the minor inconvenience of waiting behind a horse and rider for a minute or so? There are various assumptions I see made but they’re all entirely wrong.
-‘You don’t pay road tax’. Neither do you. It hasn’t existed since 1937 and almost every horse rider has insurance. Technically I’m insured with three companies through professional insurance I pay for and two other associations I’m a member of that would cover this.
-‘Horses should be ridden in fields’. We can’t teleport from their stables to the bridleways and don’t ride them in the fields they live in because they’d get as much enrichment and mental stimulation as if you walked your dog around the garden.
-‘Roads are for cars’. I ride on country lanes, roads are for walkers, horse riders, cyclists, cars, tractors…
-‘You should take the horse in a horsebox to the bridleways’. You can’t park a car by most bridleways so you definitely can’t park a lorry there, with space to get the ramp down and the horse on.
-‘Horses poo on the road’. Yes, it’s only dried grass. It’s completely harmless, disintegrates quickly and we can’t safely dismount from our horses, stand in the road to clear it and get back on. Motorbikes and cyclists also complain about it on bends but if you’re going fast enough that you can’t avoid it, you were going too fast for the conditions. If it wasn’t horse poo, it would be a pothole, a patch of mud etc
-‘If your horse is scared of cars, don’t take it on the road’. Horses aren’t usually scared of cars, but horses might react to a bird flying out of a hedge or anything else equally unexpected at the same time you overtake us. To avoid a half tonne animal going through your windscreen, please give us space.
Posted Aug 13, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC