Ridecamp: [RC] Riding at Night

But is it better to ride with > florescent 
> lights or just leave them off your horse. Can the horses see better >
if they > have no other light in there way.

Can only speak for myself.  My horse loved the flourescent light right
from the start.  He immediately picked up speed and went out with
confidence where as before we'd been carefully sort of "feeling our way
along" at the trot. 

The final straw for me, riding with no light was when his foot hit the
tiniest little water runoff rutt after dark on a 100, on  an open dirt
road. He turned a summersault and I landed face down without ever raising
my hands to defend myself simply because I never knew we were falling. It
was dark. It just felt like he was stumbling and going to come back up. 
NO fun doing a belly flop on a dirt road with a flashlight hanging from a
string around your neck. Something's gotta give and the ribs volunteer.
:-P

Like I said, the flourescent light is just a pool. It is plenty bright
enough to dodge things like holes or tiny narrow trenches that would just
look like a shadow in the moonlight. At a walk, no big deal. At a trot
they're no fun.  I'm the sort of person who steers my horse around
threatening pebbles in the trail. I assume that if something can get me
it will. I like seeing the footing.  One note though. NEVER turn it off
while you're moving.  My horse was trotting FAST at the start of a ride
and another rider commented that he didn't like the light so I reached
down and turned it off.  All my horse saw was a huge black hole opened up
in the ground in front of him and he slammed on the brakes and was going
in reverse in a nanosecond and broke my finger.  That was the bad news.
The good news was that  I couldn't hold him back very well the rest of
the day. We did the fastest 100 we'd ever done and I didn't need the
light that evening because we finished before dark. :-)

Angie

P.S. I've gotten where I like the flourescent light for working around
camp setting up vet checks after dark. I just velcro it to my belt loop.
It's like having your own little patch of daylight follow you around. 

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