THINGS THAT are exercising the horse world at the moment are various, ranging from ragwort, to hard ground, to equine crime and the fear of equine crime, to concerns about domestic and exotic disease.

Equine obesity, landowners denying horse riders their rights of responsible access, low yielding winter forage supplies, who has and hasn’t got a passport, complex new transport regulations and the cost of diesel, fly control and problems with the selling and buying of horses and ponies.

The reason I am able to reel off a negative sounding list like that is because all of these items are our daily bread and butter in the BHS office, as we try and provide a ‘one stop shop’ for frequently asked questions! Mostly we can help instantly, but just occasionally we come across situations where there are no easy answers.

Most concerns can be tackled by education, advice and contacts and this prevention through learning approach does work in most cases – however sometimes we reach stalemate and things become frustrated.

Take ragwort as an example, yes BHS has just had a ragwort awareness week campaign, and yes we have the welcome, comprehensive and free Scottish Government Guidance on ‘How to Prevent the Spread of Ragwort’, but when it comes to controlling ragwort which is spreading out of control on your neighbour’s land and threatening yours we are urged to work together with our neighbours in a spirit of collective responsibility. This neighbourly approach often works but there are, thankfully, few scenarios that reach the BHS when communication with neighbours has broken down to such an extent that there is no talking far less collective anything!

Then think of access and the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, it is clever, practical and idealistic and relies on the three key principles of respecting the interests of others, caring for the environment and taking responsibility. Most of the time the answer is in the code but there are a small number of frustrating stalemate cases where landowners deny horse riders their rights of responsible access for no other reason than ‘I don’t want anyone on my land’ (because there is no stock, no fear of damage etc) so the situation becomes a stalemate that even our helpful and professional local authority access officers cannot tackle – these cases tend to sit in the BHS pending tray.

A flip to this is the thankfully rare irresponsible horse rider who does not look behind them when riding fast downhill on a wet grassy track and therefore does not see the great rips their shod horse is making in the green cover – which in turn spoils others enjoyment of the track and affects the rights of horse riders to use it in the future. If that rider had had an inner dialogue that involved a risk assessment then they would have known to either avoid said grassy track that day or to ride up it at a slow walk because it was wet, instead of cantering down it!

Anyway enough of the rare occasions when things grind to a halt because people have not communicated and let’s just hope that all horse owners become educated riders. It is delightful to learn about the Scottish Endurance Riding Club camp rides like the August Felton Foray where riders ride 30km one day, camp and corral overnight and then ride back to their trailers by another 30km route. The rise of riding camps, much along the lines of the pony club model is one of the growing good news stories of our industry and the wonderful thing about riding and staying in new areas is that the horses enjoy the change of scene as much as the riders.

Everyone looks forward to Blair International Horse Trials which is arguably one of the main annual highlights for Scotland’s horse riders, taking place at the end of August and marking the beginning of autumn and harvest and acres of stubbles to ride on.

I hope as many of you as possible will pop into our stand, number 34 beside the entrance into the main arena and take advantage of our hospitality and exercise our brains.