Riding on the Road

Its not often we have a chance to do any hacking but last week the weather was nice and a friend and I took two horses out for a ride. Having just come back from a visit to Chantilly in France and seeing how horse friendly they are with bridleways and gallops at every turn. I have to say Rhondda Cynon Taff must be the most horse UNfriendly you could possibly get. Nowhere in Talygarn is open to horses. Landowners are either busy counting their fortunes from EC grants for diversifying or worrying that if they let you on their land you might sue. Talygarn Country Manor first came to the area with plans to include riding routes in their grounds but once they got their planning permission that went out of the window.  It didn’t occur to the RCT to put any conditions in with the planning to protect our rights, a long establisherd riding centre in their area paying rates and teaching and training many local people. So it was out onto the main road. First we have to ride over the motorway quite a daunting task in it self, then down Brynsadler Hill. I find the best way to do this is to ride two abreast and bring the traffic to a halt if need be otherwise it is just too dangerous. After that we ride across a pathway from the old Brewery to Tylagarw, a path we have ridden for nearly 20years but development is going on there and again the RCT won’t give us a second thought. The ride contines through fairly narrow lanes and that is not for the fainted hearted as the cars travel too fast on it. A rider who tried to slow a car down was recently told by a motorist ‘this is a sixty mile an hour road so I’ll do sixty if I want’ This is followed by another crossing of the motorway bridge in a lane near Llanharry. This is a very narrow crossing and we have to dismount as there is no high sides for our protection therefore it is quite dangerous. The last leg involves a ride up through Talygarn with roadstone lorries trying to overtake in both directions. This is the safest ride we have. Consequently we do not take clients out on the roads. Although we do have plans for expansion which will include riding routes through our own Land which we will require planning permission for. I wonder whether RCT will offering their support because unless your into football or rugby  theres not much they will do for you. I have to say only one or two of local councillors have ever bothered to come and see what we do.

Posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 12:23 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.