Trail Rides
Please come out to enjoy a TROT trail ride and consider leading a ride yourself! TROT trail rides are fun and a great opportunity to learn new trails, meet other TROT members, and find a new trail riding buddy. To lead a ride, contact our trail ride coordinator, Barbara Sollner-Webb.
To participate in a scheduled ride:
- Contact the ride leader to sign-up and learn the ride’s starting time and other details.
- If a ride is postponed or cancelled, the ride leader will notify you.
- Check the TROT website and TROT and Maryland Trail Riders listservs for the most current ride information.
- All ride participants:
- Must wear helmets
- Provide appropriate documentation of current negative Coggins test for the horse, in compliance with Maryland state law.
- Be a TROT member – One-day TROT memberships are available at the ride for $5
If you need a ride to the event or can offer one, please email Barbara Sollner-Webb, so that this information can be included in an upcoming newsletter, or contact the ride leader.
Trail Maintenance
Anytime you are on a trail ride and if safe to do so, you can perform trail maintenance by clipping branches that impede passageway along a trail. In addition, you can participate in scheduled trail maintenance days.
Amy Kimble is the TROT Adopt-A-Trail coordinator and she has challenged all TROT members to perform two hours of trail maintenance a year. Please contact Amy for additional information about participating in trail maintenance activities. She can be reached at 301-748-8310 or amyhkimble@aol.com.
Please report your trail work hours to Amy, who tracks this information for the state; these hours also help assess park usage.
Calendar
It will be a walk-only ride, but folks who want to go faster can ride away and then re-join the group. Bring a chair and your lunch to follow the ride. Drinks and dessert will be provided. More information to come.
The NCR trail is another treasure in our Maryland trail system that riders should get to know. It is a lovely, hard-packed dirt rails-to-trails, over 20 miles in Maryland, from just north of Baltimore to the Pennsylvania line, and then continuing another 21 miles to York, PA, basically paralleling but not close to I-83. At many places the trail crosses the Gunpowder Falls River, great for giving the horses a drink and cooling off. We will leave from Freeland in northern Maryland and ride about 2 ½ hours, with an all-walk group and a walk/trot/and a little canter group. A great trip to get your horse familiar with bikes. Please bring along a contribution for a potluck lunch after the ride, at the park’s nice, shaded picnic table. There is also a well with wonderfully cool water for cooling off the horses.
Located in Carroll County, the Morgan Run N.E.A. is comprised of approximately 2,000 acres of natural area. Hiking and equestrian trails are popular. Equestrians are restricted to specific trails.
White Wine and Clarrett Farm (home of TROT members Susan Gray and Mike Caruso) is offering an evening clinic on the importance of riding correctly to keep our horses sound, happy, well-moving and responsive.
A second but equally important focus is the use of progressive and varied exercises to develop the horse’s physical ability to move comfortably and well while carrying a rider.
This clinic will be given by Kendle Buffington, a former eventer, classically trained in dressage, from Nottingham, PA. She has a real knack for identifying and explaining in plain English what the horse and rider need to do to move in greater harmony and how the rider should communicate this to the horse. These are skills that are the foundation for all horse disciplines and make for much more pleasurable and controlled trail riding. Just ask Mike Caruso, who has been working with Kendle for a couple of years and has seen such amazing transformations in their horses that he and Susan have convinced Kindle to give a clinic for TROT members.
It will be on Saturday, August 26 at Susan and Mike’s indoor arena in Highland, MD. The plan is a potluck dinner at 5 PM followed by the clinic from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Please RSVP to Susan at <susan@campsusan.com> for specifics, to reserve your spot, and to learn the location.
It will be a walk-only ride, but folks who want to go faster can ride away and then re-join the group. Bring a chair and your lunch to follow the ride. Drinks & dessert will be provided. More information to come.
This is a return of a favorite TROT ride, with both all-walk and walk/trot/canter groups, going through lovely fields, out to the C&O canal and then back for a delicious luncheon. More information to come.
Rain date Thursday, September 21. More information to come.
Come ride on top of Catoctin Mountain in the Frederick County Watershed. It is beautiful here, but some of the trails are rocky, so shoes or Easyboots are recommended. We will begin riding from the intersection of Tower Road and Gambrill Park Road. Pack a snack and beverage to enjoy during this 2-hour, all-walk ride. I look forward to enjoying your fellowship. By the way, it’s cooler up here on the mountain during the hot days of summer.
Rain date Saturday, September 30.
We will again be riding these lovely trails. See write- up for April 29 ride..
It will be a walk-only ride, but folks who want to go faster can ride away and then re-join the group. Bring a chair and your lunch to follow the ride. Drinks & dessert will be provided. More information to come.