grooming kit & saddle-racks
We supply saddle-racks, buckets, coarse mix and a basic grooming kit at each overnight stop, which includes saddle soap and a sponge. You are welcome to bring your own if you prefer - although grooming items are quite bulky, so you will need to use the luggage ferry to carry them if you are doing a place-to-place ride.

guides to the routes
Our package includes the necessary marked up maps and a set of detailed written directions for each day's ride, which we refer to as a route-guide or route-notes. There is no need to be an expert map-reader to follow these directions, but it does help if you have some basic skills to check your location in relation to local landmarks. It is also really helpful if you know how to work out your location and give a six-figure grid reference to the emergency services so they can find you quickly if the worst happens and you have an accident.

If you want two copies of each route-guide (for example, in case one gets damaged, or so that two riders can each have one each), tick the box on the Booking Form. There's a small charge of £1 per route/day to cover the extra admin. and postage. Extra marked up maps are also available at £7 per map - but please note that you need more than one OS map for some networks.

Guide to Bridle Riding
When we confirm your booking, we send you a copy of our own Guide to Bridle Riding for your chosen network. The Guide is the fruit of a lot of experience of bridle-riding by ourselves and other customers and it is well worth reading, particularly if you are a first timer. It contains notes on everything from farming and old roads to bridleway and Rights of Way law, getting your horse fit for a Bridle Rides, clothing and equipment, weather forecasts, insurance, potential hazards, maps etc.

hard feed
We supply a non-heating coarse-mix and salt at each stop. The coarse-mix is usually the local feed merchant's own brand, so if you want anything different or your horse has any specific feed supplements, you need to take them with you. If you are riding from place to place, you'll probably need to use the Luggage Ferry to move your feed from one host to another.

hiring horses
We used to know of a couple of places that would sometimes hire horses for bridle riding. However, we can't offer this service any longer because most insurance companies will not insure horses for unescorted riding, particularly where they are kept away from the owner's premises overnight as they would be on a bridle ride. Hiring horses for unescorted riding is also now a specific insurance exclusion on policies held by British Horse Society approved livery yards and riding centres.

Although we can't arrange hire for you, there are other companies that will offer a Bridle Rides type experience on hired horses - although, in all but one instance, the rides are escorted. Click here for a link to the details.

hi-viz clothing
We always recommend wearing hi-viz gear when you are bridle riding. Not only does it make you more visible to traffic when you are riding on roads, but it is also much easier for other path users to spot you at a distance on bridleways and for the emergency services to find you in the event of an accident.

One of the key recommendations that came out of a joint BHS and Ministry of Defence safety conference in September 2005 was that riders can make themselves more visible to low flying military helicopter pilots by wearing hi-viz items that are visible from above such as a hat cover. We have a lot more information on low flying on our web page about other users and hazards, or click on the following link for a copy of the joint MOD/BHS leaflet Military Low Flying : Safety - a Guide for Riders.

We have a great new range of hi-viz safety yellow T-shirts and sweatshirts with the Bridle Rides logo on the back for the humans in your party. Check out the following link to our What's New page for photos and prices.

insurance
At the end of the day, you are riding at your own risk, and insurance for your yourself, your horse and your transport is your responsibility. It is a condition of booking that everyone in the party must be insured for Third Party Legal Liabilities as a minimum, and cover should extend to all riders, horses and any vehicles that are parked at our hosts' premises. Public liability insurance is a must for riding on a "highway", which includes all public rights of way (ie. bridleways and by-ways) as well as roads. Anything more is up to you, but we recommend that you insure your horse for vet fees and your vehicle and tack against fire and theft risks.

Some domestic policies cover pets (which may include horses), and Gold Members of the British Horse Society get up to £10 million of third party liability cover for all the horses they own as part of their membership package. Check with your insurer if you have any doubts about the extent of your cover. NB - As Bridle Rides is a trade member of the BHS, you can always e-mail us directly for a membership form.

luggage ferry
If you don't fancy carrying all your belongings with you in saddle bags, the luggage ferry is an additional service you can book to transport your luggage from one overnight stop to the next while you are riding. It costs an extra £20 per party (not per person) per day. You can take spare clothes, bird-books, boots, a bottle or two of wine, NZ rugs and equipment - and if your horse wants something other than the coarse mix we provide at each stop, you can take your own feed and supplements too.
The luggage ferry is often an ordinary taxi which may be driven by a woman, so it doesn't have unlimited space. Although there's room for ordinary luggage, equipment and some special horse feed, please be aware of the limitations of space and the strength of the driver.

lunch-stops
We try to include a horse friendly pub-stop or cafe on most rides, although in remote areas this isn't always possible. Please note that there may also be odd days during the week when pubs are shut at lunchtime, so we recommend phoning ahead to check the opening hours, particularly if you have to take a diversion to get there. You can get water and a tying up place for your horse at most pubs, although some of these are at the back of the car-park. We include as many details as we can about each lunch-stop in the header section of the relevant day's route-notes, including the phone number. These were current when we last visited, but we often aren't told about changes to the hours, landlord (or even closures) that happen in between times - so if a pub lunch is a "must have" for your party, phoning in advance to let them know you are coming is strongly recommended!

If there isn't a convenient pub or you aren't happy about holding or tying up your horse in the car-park, you can take a pack-lunch from your hosts. This costs £4-5 per person per day, and you pay your hosts direct. Many customers prefer to take a pack-lunch anyway because they can decide for themselves when and where to stop.

maps and map-cases
One set of Ordnance Survey maps marked up with your route is included in the basic package price as back-up to the written directions, or in case you want to shorten your route for any reason. You can also order extra copies of the marked up maps at £7 per map - but please take into account that some rides cover more than one OS map!

In most cases the maps are the pink 1:50,000 Landranger type, although we provide bigger scale Outdoor Leisure or Explorer maps for the mountain and moorland networks (Welsh Borders, Exmoor and the North York Moors). You will need a waterproof map-case in which to carry the map and route-notes, and if you want to buy one from us, they are £5 each (including postage).

non-riders
Many parties of bridle riders include friends and relatives who are non-riders. We can book them in to the same overnight stops, and because there are no horse expenses, they get a discount of £10 per person per day. Most people accompany the riders on a mountain-bike, but there are other things to do such as walking and meeting the riders at the pub for lunch, golfing, fishing or touring by car. All the networks are full of interesting places to visit and you can get to the seaside from some of them, perhaps with children that are too young to enjoy a bridle-ride. For example, in Rutland there is cycling and windsurfing on Rutland Water, and one of our hosts in the Sussex Rides has a fishing lake on site!

number of riders in a party
Bridle-riding is best for small groups of 2 to 4 people. Some of our hosts only have 2 guest rooms and may not be able to cope with more than 4 people at a time. There are a few one-centre hosts that can cope with larger parties of 5 or more - but they are limited and not available on all networks, so please ring us before you book.

We do not accept lone riders for safety reasons - and by "lone" we mean unaccompanied, so a rider accompanied by a mountain biker is fine. It is always best if there are at least 2 people in the event of an accident or emergency, and lone riders are simply too much of a worry for our hosts - even very experienced riders with a mobile phone. If you're looking for someone else to ride with, we can post an "advert" with your contact details on the Co-Rider page of our website - here's a link if you want to check out the existing adverts.

passports
All horses must have a valid passport from February 2005. The law is not clear as to whether passports are required if you are transporting your horse to the start of a riding holiday but it would be advisable to take yours with you, particularly now that your passport includes your horse's vaccination details.

rides
You can either do a place-to-place ride or a one-centre holiday, and the description for each network tells you what's available. If you want to check out a few now, click on the following link to the network map and use the labels on it to get to the detailed information about each area, which lead on to comments and photos from previous riders.
distance per day
Our rides are typically 14-20 miles per day, which equates to about 5 or 6 hours in the saddle plus rest stops - 2-3 hours in the morning and the same in the afternoon; maybe a bit more or a bit less, depending how fast you go. Please note that because you are following a map, you cover the ground much more slowly than on a home ride where you and your horse know the way. Terrain and other factors such as the number of gates also influence the time it takes to go from A to B - and many bridle riders are surprised to find they only cover 2.5 to 3 miles an hour.
duration
You can ride from 2 days up to 9 days depending on your choice of network, starting on any day of the week. We suggest that you include a rest-day in rides of 4 days or more (there is a £10 discount for rest-days). There's also a discount on longer rides - the first 3 riding days and nights are charged at the normal rate, after that it's £5 less per riding day from Day 4 onwards.
petal rides
Petal rides are the circular day rides you do on a one-centre holiday where you return to the same B&B host each evening rather than riding from one place to another. Most one-centre holidays have 2 or 3 petal rides, and in some cases you can combine them with place-to-place rides to make up what we call a combination ride (for availability, see the description of each network).
shorter or longer rides
Its surprisingly difficult to design shorter or longer rides between the same overnight stops because the distance is often dictated by the location of physical features such as main road and river crossings and/or the location of the hosts themselves. Fortunately most riders are happy with the length of our regular rides - and we do try to include short-cuts and longer options wherever we can.
start/end-points
We normally design place to place rides to go in a large circle so that you ride back to the start point, where your vehicle is parked, at the end of your last day. If you prefer to do a linear ride which ends at a different place, tick the relevant box on Booking Form.
Sometimes, depending on your requirements for dates and/or extras such as stabling, you may get a better ride if you end at a different point - and if you are using hired transport, it probably won't matter if you start and end at different places. Tick the box on Booking Form if you don't mind ending at a different point - but please note that, unless you are using hired transport and can arrange a different pick-up point, you will need to pay for a taxi back to the start to collect your vehicle (which can cost anywhere between £15 and £40, depending on mileage).

saddle-bags
Some of our customers like to carry their belongings with them in saddle-bags, while the others use the luggage ferry. If you decide to carry your own kit, it is good to feel self-contained as you ride the countryside, and it is surprising how much you can fit in. We've carried enough clothes, washing things and waterproofs etc. for several days in the saddle. We usually carry wet weather gear either in a roll-bag on the front of the saddle or a cantle bag at the rear so that it can be kept separate from our clean clothes, and readily accessible if there's a sharp shower. We do not recommend carrying a rucksack on your back because it will unbalance you and cause a serious injury in a fall.

You can get leather saddle bags from Rimmell Saddlers, 1 West St, Shipston-on-Stour, Warks (tel : 01608 662 000). Synthetic ones are much cheaper and more waterproof, but they are less robust and can tear if you catch them on a gate. Performance Equestrian have a good selection, and they also supply lots of other kit that is useful for bridle riding as well as endurance and BHS Trec competitions (tel : 01366 727 543 or order online at www.performance-equestrian.com).
There are plenty of other saddle bags available via the major equestrian mail order companies and in tack shops, but you need to make sure that you need to get ones that either have a belly strap or straps that attach to the girth. Some don't, co check before you buy.

season for bridle-riding
Easter or April 1st (whichever is sooner) until the clocks go back at the end of October.

smokers
Very few of our hosts allow smoking in their house, and you may also find smoking restrictions outside in some places, eg. near barns and stables.

stabling
Only about half our overnight stops have stables, so your choice is a lot more limited if you want them. There is also less stabling available early and late in the season because our hosts are using the stables for their own horses or they take winter liveries. The cost for stabling is £10 extra per horse per night which includes hay and bedding. In most cases, our hosts provide a straw bed, and you should be prepared to contribute to the extra cost of providing anything special or different for your horse. Please note that your £10 only covers the use of the stable building plus hay and bedding - you will be expected to muck out and leave the stable as you found it!
Carrying New Zealand rugs in the Luggage Ferry may be an alternative if stabling is not available.

transport to the start
We provide a place to park your horse-transport during your ride, but you have to get yourself to the start and each vehicle is parked at the owner's risk. If you don't want to travel too far, have a look at the network maps - you may find there is a network closer to home than you thought.
If you don't have your own lorry or trailer, hiring transport may be cheaper than you think, specially if there are 3 or 4 horses in your party so you can share the cost. One or two companies are starting to offer a self-drive hire service. Either way, it will probably work out cheaper if you hire locally - check your local equestrian magazines, tack shops and Yellow Pages for contact details.

updating our Route-guides
Our networks cover around 3,000 miles of bridleway and by-way, and we have ridden them all ourselves at least once. Bridle Rides has been operating since the mid-1980s, so some of the more established networks have been covered several times. We re-ride each network in full every four or five years and check out any changes riders tell us about in the meantime. Urgent problems are checked on foot or on a mountain bike, immediately if need be - while other amendments and updates are picked up whenever we're next in the area. We incorporate any changes into our route-notes for future riders and, if necessary, we ask the relevant County Council Rights of Way Officers to clear fallen trees and overgrown vegetation,

vaccinations and worming
It is a condition of booking that your horse must be wormed and vaccinated against equine flu and tetanus - for the sake of our hosts' horses and the other horses in the party as well as your own horse. Some hosts either ride competitively, train horses or run a livery yard so this really is a must - and they may also ask to see your passport or vaccination certificate.
There is now a brand new vaccine against the strangles virus, streptococcus equi. Bobbie from Bridle Rides has considered having her own horse, Herbie, vaccinated, but her vet did not recommend it because, in his view, the effectiveness of the vaccination is unproven and the incidence of genuine strangles outbreaks is relatively low. For the moment, we are keeping an eye on the welfare advice given by organisations like the BHS, but please note that vaccination may become a requirement in the future.

video
There is a limit to what words can tell, so we have made a 15-minute video which was filmed in the Cotswolds. We need a £5 refundable deposit which we will return when the video arrives back safely at the Bridle Rides office - e-mail us if you'd like to borrow it.

weather
You must be prepared for some standard English weather, which means rain. Sussex is a bit drier than most places and the Welsh Borders are a bit wetter. The North York Moors, though sometimes misty, have surprisingly little rain.
It seldom rains continuously for more than a few hours in England, and you have at least ten hours a day (8 am to 6 pm) in which to fit 5-6 hours of riding. That means that, given a reasonably accurate weather forecast, you can often avoid prolonged rain - but not always!
Heat may be more of a problem. We either handle it by starting very early in the morning or taking a longer break in the middle of the day. You really need to carry drinking water with you for the humans and allow your horse to drink a small amount whenever possible.