Until yesterday, I hadn't really given it a great deal of thought (occasionally when Beau grabs a quick mouthfull on the way past ). We live in the country and you get the odd batch but nothing to be bothered by.
My FIL's road on the other hand is caked in it as the riding school uses this road 3-4 times a day.
Horse manure isn't the same as dog poo but when it comes into contact with water it does become a health hazard and there are a lot of children playing on this road.
I personally don't see the harm in having one of the workers from the centre clearing up once a week

See now if it's right outside a riding school ie a business perhaps it could be classed as industrial horse waste? In which case yes it would be nice to have them clear it up, but then what would they do with it?
It's now official waste.... the same as the swivel chair I offered to take from our office to the dump, who asked me where it was from and then told me there would be a huge fine if I left it there as it was industrial waste!
So I drove out, came back in again and dumped it, they asked again so I told them it was a different chair and was mine, all was fine.

Now I'm not going to go to the dump witha load of horse manure and say that is mine!

P.S Helena, I was waiting for you to turn up.

Opening up JoedeeUK's link in post 13 it states "Horse waste is potentially harmful (particularly when stored or spread near to water) to the environment and human health. It is therefore important that it is dealt with appropriately and safely."

Now from reading that I would think that it should be a must for it to be cleaned off the roads, otherwise the moment it rains it just get washed into the drains and then into the water system.

"Potentially harmful" ??? What is that supposed to mean. Does it give any specific reasons why it might be potentially harmful?

a lot of horse riders here used to ride on the paths until someone complained to the parish council who put a notice in our newsletter.

it might not be harmful but tell that to mums with pushchairs who have to go through the stuff of go in the roads. then it becomes harmful.

i think riding schools should clean up and anyone breaking the law by riding on the paths should, out of courtesey to the public.

20 years ago people would have laughed at the thought of everyone picking up dog poo in a bag....
It's about having respect for other people really...

Now we're getting silly if this muck is classed as harmful to the environment!!! So is just about every other animal that poo's just about anywhere and it eventually finds itself in the water table, especially COWS, and I DO find their poo very offense!!! If I can get bse from eating parts of their insides, I'm darn sure I can get bse by coming into contact with their waste, in a roundabout way perhaps, i.e. treading in it, walking into bootroom with boots on with it stuck on the bottom, maybe then dropping something out of my fridge/freezer out there, it falls on a bit that might have got stuck to the floor, you get the picture! Now I've forgotten what I was going to say!!!!

We've got a Parish Council here, and if they can't even get people to clear up dangerous poo, i.e. dog poo, then how on earth can I expect them to get the horse poo cleaned up off our roads in my village?!

I had horses for nearly 30 years, constantly coming into contact with my bare hands with said poo (actually it's called "dung"!!! ) then maybe eating a twix bar with it growing out of my fingernails and yet I never came to any harm? I got dirty yes, coz I used to wipe my hands all down the front of my fleece, and perhaps a bit smelly, coz I'd always clear the local shop if I went straight in there on the way home, but as for being harmful, absolutely NO way, unless the horse had been wormed, and then, yes, it was downright lethal!!!

If it's on a track approaching a riding school, a business, then I would have thought, with the amount of traffic using it, then it would be up to them to clear it up - before it got flattened of course, coz then it's very hard work, unless you've got Becky's jet cleaner to hand!

Oh I'm loving this thread!!!!!

those mums would hate it up here then, as I took Ben for a lovely walk in his pushchair yesterday but unfortunately we drove it through lots of sheep poo so had to wash the wheels when we got home

Sorry for being a bit mischievious, but I really find the thought of riders having to pick up horse poo rather silly.

We've lived around it for hundred's of years, and if you went to Nigeria, you wouldn't like what they do there, they c*ap in the streets and leave it there, now that IS something I would find worrying

I think some of us may be getting brainwashed by the beaurocracy from Belgium here, as we want to live in a bubble, nothing nasty around us, nothing natural, no germs, no smells, no natural bacteria for us to help us fight off diseases, so we'll eventually end up living on ab's most of our lives just like my dog, but then of course, we'll be immune to all of them won't we. They used to say we all ate a lb of dirt in our lifetime, but the way things are going, you all want the environment so pristine clean that won't happen, and like I said, it all helps our immune systems to build up antibodies against nasties, and horse dung is NOT a nasty, it's only hay and chaff and cereals nothing else, they don't eat anything but grain and grass!

You have obviously never been to my house...anything but pristine and sterile.
The way I see it is that horses are domestic animals, they are ridden and taken out by humans for a purpose...so those humans should take responsibility for the s**t their animal produces. Sheep/cows etc tend to live out, as do foxes, birds and the like...totally different. Horses go out, with an owner and s**t everywhere and that owner should deal with it, if it is in an area where it could create a problem. Not immediately, as I said in my previous post, but at some point soon after.
At the end of the day it is a big pile of s**t. I'm a vegetarian H but you wouldn't catch me picking up my s**t or leaving it for someone else to clear up. That argument just doesn't wash.... 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet' and all that. S**t...no matter from what animal is s**t and should be dealt with IF a human purposefully takes said animal out and about....