Beware of Horses

Had an interesting ride Saturday, luckily had my video camera rolling for this little event. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSOcoexUIlo]YouTube - Spooked Horse[/ame]

That was interesting. Is that a common occurrence on your roads?
On the plus side it looked like it was a beautiful day.

Lefty said:

That was interesting. Is that a common occurrence on your roads?
On the plus side it looked like it was a beautiful day.

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Horses are often out and about in the countryside, even on 60mph roads like this one. Usually they are a bit more "stable".

Was a lovely day after heavy rain earlier, back to cold and damp again now. Was only about 6'C/43F

they also like to leave manure in the middle of blind bends


i usually clutch in and glide past them

greg said:

they also like to leave manure in the middle of blind bends


i usually clutch in and glide past them

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Gross....




but I admit it made me laugh

i see them a bit around md and va horse country.
they dont like your engine sound.
it's better to pull over and kill your engine.
some of those horses are HUGE.

alanrim said:

Had an interesting ride Saturday, luckily had my video camera rolling for this little event.

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I think you handled that really well. :thumbup:

Good onya for shutting down. I find it the best way sometimes. If I'm rolling, and it's stopped on the side of the road, I generally click up 2 gears, to make the bike quieter.

On a side note, I really don't think they should be out on the road nowadays. Not being nasty or anything, but it can cause problems like yours. In the middle of a blind bend or just over a crest, and that could've been really dangerous.

I had to do what you did once for a possum in the Grampians...lol. Everytime I tried to move it spooked and ran in front of me.

Cheers for you on shutting it down , so many people wouldnt even think about that :thumbup:.......... Half the drivers these days wouldnt even slow down :spank:

Wonder what it saw on the other side of the crest, didn't think the Renault was that ugly....

Anyway nice handling of the situation...

ozzieboy said:

Good onya for shutting down. I find it the best way sometimes. If I'm rolling, and it's stopped on the side of the road, I generally click up 2 gears, to make the bike quieter.

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I was a little bit concerned about losing my ability to move if needed but it did seem to help.

The BMW is a different beast to the FZ, shutting the throttle gives engine braking which can lead to an occasional pop on the overrun, so when riding past horses on the flat or down hill the only answer is to dip the clutch.

The BMW twin is certainly a lot throatier than the FZs 4, and I wonder if the sounds was being amplified by the hedge. The Renault was not helpful, he could have stopped nearer the brow of the hill/corner, he also shouldn't have started moving when the horse started backing down the hill putting more pressure on the horse and rider.

Glad that I seemed to do the right thing when under pressure with very little time to think, even remembered to put the hazard warning on (bonus of the BMW they stay on when the ignition turned off too).

Note on the FZ to keep the hazards on with key out of ignition, you need to turn the key to park first, so not so good in an emergency situation

A road like that over here would have a limit of 50 km/hr... You guys are lucky over there to be able to ride at a more reasonable speed!

We had a horse get skitzy on us while mountain biking on a trail. I climbed some rocks on the bike to clear and area for my wife to get by because the horse was backing up on us. I ended up going down and getting hurt.
We used to stop and dismount as a courtesy to the horse riders but now we just blast through because you'll just end up getting kicked when a the equestrian rider doesn't really know what's going on anyway. There's no kill switch on a horse!

Good job though. When I saw you stop and shut down I was worried that you were in a more risky position if the horse really saw you as a threat.

I like horses but I personally only like to ride one kind of animal.

Had a horse spooked by my gs 500 last year, despite going slow and giving it heaps of room it bolted and tossed the girl riding it. Wondered why she would venture out on the road on a horse that was obviously not stable [no pun intended].
I will stick to something safe like a motorcycle.

Not Bull $ht but Horse $ht

You handled it well, thanks for the film :thumbup:

During a trip in November I had the same thing happen to me, but I had 2 other riders with me. The horse rider somehow managed to stay on but the horse was all over the place, and we had to stop and turn off our engines before it calmed down. Luckily in my case it was on a straight stretch of road. since this experience I always give horses a wide berth and keep my revs as low as possible.