Equestrian paralyzed, horse spooked by mt. bike racer on WST

On 7/19/2012 4:53 AM, Blackblade wrote:

If the horse was going to spook at a mountain bike rider it would likely have also done so at the arrival of large numbers of runners or other horses too. The issue is the horse's reaction to other trail users.

The only sensible conclusion is that no-one should take a horse onto a trail shared with other users until such time as it is sufficiently acclimated. Otherwise, it poses a risk to its own rider and other trail users.

A sad accident, but it was caused by a horse that should not have been
out on a trail where it was known there would be other trail users.

Equestrians need to buy land and create their own exclusive trail system
if their horses are going to be spooked by something like this. Public
trails should be for self-powered users only. No off-road vehicles, no
horses, no snowmobiles, no motorcycles. These non-human powered devices
and animals damage trails, make a huge mess, endanger other trail users,
and in some cases cause noise pollutions as well.

On Wednesday, August 1, 2012 8:20:48 PM UTC-7, SMS wrote:
On 7/19/2012 4:53 AM, Blackblade wrote:



If the horse was going to spook at a mountain bike rider it would likely have also done so at the arrival of large numbers of runners or other horses too. The issue is the horse's reaction to other trail users.



The only sensible conclusion is that no-one should take a horse onto a trail shared with other users until such time as it is sufficiently acclimated. Otherwise, it poses a risk to its own rider and other trail users.



A sad accident, but it was caused by a horse that should not have been

out on a trail where it was known there would be other trail users.



Equestrians need to buy land and create their own exclusive trail system

if their horses are going to be spooked by something like this. Public

trails should be for self-powered users only. No off-road vehicles, no

horses, no snowmobiles, no motorcycles. These non-human powered devices

and animals damage trails, make a huge mess, endanger other trail users,

and in some cases cause noise pollutions as well.

Total BS. Bikes and other machinery doesn't belong on trails. Horses belong here, and have a right to go wherever they want to!

On 7/23/2012 1:36 PM, Trevor wrote:

snip

The mountain biker was fine until the horse came along. And then the
mountain biker was still fine. The horse appears to have been the
problem, particularly since the trail had been marked for a mountain
bike race. The horse simply should not have been there.

Very true. But the root cause of the problem is the horses don't belong
on trails used by those traveling under their own power. Part of it is
that horses are easily spooked and dangerous. But the bigger problem, as
hikers and other trail users all agree, is that horses make a huge mess
of the trail. They cause far more erosion than boot prints or tire
tracks, and equestrians are not as considerate as most dog owners and
they don't clean up after their animals. Since equestrians don't clean
up after their animals, a very big problem is the effect of manure and
urine on the eco-system: "Two types of impacts that are likely to be
much greater from horse riding than the other activities are
nutrification of soils and waterways from horse manure and the spread of
weeds. In addition to the impacts due to human waste (Bridle and
Kirkpatrick, 2003, 2005; Bridle et al., 2006) that would be associated
with all three activities, horses themselves produce large amounts of
waste."

With all the damage caused by equestrians, they are very lucky that
mountain bikers are, by nature, non-confrontational. The same is true
for most hikers. Other than that case on the Strawberry Canyon Fire Road
near UC Berkeley, where a deranged individual was convicted of attacking
mountain bikers, hikers are usually mild-mannered.

There's a good compendium of studies on the subject of trail impact of
horses, hikers, and mountain bikes at
http://www.uvm.edu/~snrvtdc/trails/ComparingHikingMtnBikingHorseRidingImpacts.pdf.
In terms of trail damage, horses cause far more damage than hikers or
mountain bikers, and in terms of overall impact mountain bikers have the
least impact.