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HI Spy: Your Favorite Place

A ride on your favorite trail or open field can turn a mediocre day into a day worth celebrating. Whether it’s the scenery, the terrain or the way your horse seems to perk up when you get there, having a favorite place to ride is almost as important as having a favorite horse to ride there.



Some riders prefer the familiar trails that wind around their own property or boarding stable. Knowing exactly what you’re going to face can help you customize your ride to be a relaxing way to unwind or a challenge to work on training and conditioning.



Other riders have a favorite off-site location, a network of trails they can only visit on certain weekends or even just once a year. Perhaps your favorite place to ride is somewhere you’ve only visited once.

If trail riding isn’t your thing, your preferred location could be the main arena at a showgrounds you frequent, a cushy indoor arena with footing like a cloud at a stable where you once attended a clinic, or even the reliable training area in your own backyard.

Click “Submit a Comment” below to tell us about your favorite place to ride. Some of our favorite responses could be published in a future issue of Horse Illustrated.

One selected response may be selected by the editors to win a monthly prize! If you would like to be eligible for the prize, please include your email address in the comment form (email addresses are not publicly displayed.)

See all HI Spy Questions >>

View Comments

  • My favorite place so far is Bryce Canyon. Riding through tall spires of mulit-colored rock in various formations just can't be beat.

  • I don't really have a favorite place to ride and it's the least of my worries. As long as I get to be with my horse, any place is great!

  • My favorite place to ride used to be in an un-fenced pasture at the barn I board at. Sadly, that pasture was fenced in and horses are now in it, so I don't ride there often. My other favorite places to ride are the trails we often ride at friends' houses or simply in the arena where I can work my horse hard and teach him new things.

  • My favorite place to ride is a trail that brings back a flood of memories about times that I've shared with my horse. It is a trail with lots of forks, switchbacks, hills, dusty cowpaths that wind around sharp cutbanks, amongst giant cottonwood trees that lay down their bedding of snow-while cotton; along the treeline of lush green fields, ponds that are surrounded with weeping willows that shout out glory with their small, perfect flowers; through an aisle of green poplars, a creek that runs beside an open field of wild strawberry blossoms; to the dusky trail that only lets a shaded amount of sunlight through. In those places, I feel true peace. And my horse feels it also, for every time we go there, he has a different way of doing things, and he and I truly understand what peace is. Along that trail, I have always felt closer to my horse. As if we were....One mind.

  • When riding, whatever place that my horse enjoys going is where I like to go! We both like to ride in the dry riverbed by my house - miles of sand means galloping - fun for my horse - and switchbacks, turns and maze like trails made by the water means fun for me!

  • My favorite place to ride as well as my horses is the woods behind my house. When i take the horses out during the summer they know right where to go... to the stream. The woods are not that big but theres nice deep spots in the stream that the horses love to go and slash around in and in some cases try to lay down in. I wouldnt trade these memories for anything.

  • My favorite place to ride would just be in open spaces. It has taken me so long to get my mare to stay calm in the open that it is an accomplishment to just be able to have her stand still!

  • My favorite place to ride is anywhere horses are allowed. If I am on my sweet mare, then I'm in the best riding place in the world.

  • My favorite place to ride is in my neighbor's field. It is a very nice place with woods on each side of it.Also it is wonderful place to get a gallop in.

  • Kingsland Bay! It's on the shores of Lake Champlain, and in the summer months, the evening is cool and the crickets are out. The horses love it, and I do, too!

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