Re: Scary inceident

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

At 08:27 PM 4/10/2001 -0700, Colleen Kirkpatirck wrote:
>I had a horriable thing happen to me today when I was out rideing.
>Can't I just go for a nice ride and not worry about some asshole
>trying to intentally playing a mean joke.
>So have any of you out there have a simular experiance?
>What did you do about it?
>Thanks
>Colleen K.

Where i live, there is a subdivision across the road -- I live on "the farm
side".  To go riding in the hills behind us (reservation land for logging
and an entrance is at the end of my street), I would have to ride about 1/2
mile on an asphalt road and then another 1/2 mile on a gravel road (very
rural residential area in the woods) -- the gravel road being a dead end
road (sort of.)  There is a fair amount of traffic on this road so when I
was a fairly new rider I would choose my "out" times during the lightest
times.  This helped some, but there were still the idiots (usually male,
between 16 and 20something, driving a $250 beater, acting like hots*** <g>)
who would plague us ever now and again.  

When I was fairly green (or when I was a bit more experienced but had a
green horse I was working with), if we saw a car coming we would pull the
horses over into a driveway or yard (or as far over in single file on the
side of the road), stop, turn them to watch the car, and then signal the
driver to slow down.  If they didn't start to slow, I would whip out a
small tablet and a pen (before the days of cell phones) and write down
their info.  Occasionally I had to quickly get off of a fairly anxious
greenie, but I would make it apparent that I was recording their license
plate number, car description, etc.  Usually, when they'd see me pull out
the little tablet and pen, they'd slow waaaaaay down and creep by me.
Sometimes not tho...so those I called in.  I continued to assess the
oncoming traffic when I was riding more experience horses, but wouldn't
usually stop -- however, if they looked like "trouble" I would go into
"green horse" mode again.  

I've thought the cell phone would work well, but I don't ride up there much
any more so I haven't had an opportunity to try it.  (I got tired of the
same hills all of the time (my only riding area for about 10 years) so
after we built an arena I went into "arena dressage" mode for several
years.  When I emerged, I started looking for other areas to ride in.  I
trailer out now to ride...still not interested in that area, altho other
from my barn go up there fairly regularly.) 


Sue


sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.