ABSTRACT
Hacking is a British term to refer to trail riding, or riding in open spaces, beyond the confines of the riding arena or manège. Horse people often ‘go for a hack’ or ‘ride out’ as part of their routine riding activities. A hack can take anything from about 20 minutes up to many hours (or even days), and can encompass a vast array of scenery and contexts, including roadwork, beaches, woodland, moorland and fields, depending on the facilities and environments within which horse and rider hack out. Hacking is an important activity in the horse world, and horse people participate in this activity for a variety of reasons, including, for fun and relaxation, to socialise, to enjoy nature, and as an element of training. Hacking differs from other equestrian contexts discussed in this book, such as training and competition, in that it takes place in an unbounded environment. This has implications for human-horse relationships and interactions, as both horse and rider may behave differently, and respond to stimuli in considerably different ways when out hacking than when within the more controlled confines of the riding arena. Throughout this chapter I explore the role of hacking in the horse world in relation to human-horse interactions, and the development of riding identities.1
