Personally, as an equestrian and cyclist, I don't see why equestrians who don't cycle get all up in arms over road riding. We pretty much want the same.damn.thing -drivers to be smart and not kill us and for those who use the road to do so PROPERLY and SAFELY so they don't ruin it for the rest of us. Both take some common sense. If you are riding in traffic, be safe. And I don't even LIKE road horseback riding because of the lack of safe roads here. It is a pretty urban area to be riding a horse in. In many of these places, I don't even ride my bike because the area has proved very dangerous to fellow cyclists and there are better routes to take. And to me, even riding a bike in a congested area is different - mainly because if I get hurt it is *my* own problem, but if my horse and I do, that isn't fair to the poor animal carting me around. My show horse was road safe as they come and could deal with bikes, cars, motorized scooters, etc, but I did not take her out on our roads. Many, many here give me hell for riding by the local arena going 20 mph or so - the speed limit is 35. In fact, one mother actually stopped me and demanded to know why I was "spooking the horses" She actually CHASED after me and flagged me down.

Now, I stopped and talked to her because I thought there was an emergency or something, but I was out of the area too quick to see really,so she had to have been LOOKING for me specifically. This is the same family who rode their horses in the city and almost KILLED me previously this year. 5 cars could have been in an accident. Two horses were riding on the SIDEWALK (they aren't allowed that here) and one got caught up in a utlity line coming off a pole. The horse started to flip out and spooked the other who went up in the air rearing an flipping out in the intersection (he almost flipped over).

While I don't ride on the roads, I think any equestrian should be allowed the same rights as I am. So I don't understand the cycle hate. I brought up a topic on this a couple of months ago when my accident happened and people didn't understand why I was angry at these people. They attacked me. After all, I am one of those terrible cyclists. No bother than I have been riding a horse for about 15 years.