Jacksonville Equestrian Center

Jenny's horse, Maybe (who is Stylin's daughter)

The city of Jacksonville built a fabulous equestrian facility several years ago, but just recently opened some multi use trails. The grand opening for the trails will be this month and I think all my riding buddies will show up. It is a wonderful show and event facility and now they are making the arenas more available for us recreational riders when there are no events scheduled. There are plans to expand the trails to join up with two State Forests. This is especially cool for me because it's only a 10 minute trailer ride from my house.

Me on Stylin and Jenny on Maybe

My daughter Jenny, joined me and my friend Cathy for a couple hour ride to explore the new trails. The trails run through property that used to belong to the Cecil Field Naval Air Base and there are still sections that have signs reading - DANGER - UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE. We made sure not to do any bush whacking through that area.

Cathy on my other horse Dixie

The trails start off paved for the cylclists and walkers, but we were able to continue on old roads that run through the woods. There were several offshoot trails but they were too deep from the recent heavy rains we've had. More exploring for another day.
There were lots of concrete bunkers covered in vines and overgrowth - one of them that we checked out had bats roosting in it.

We ended up our ride by circling the facility and checking out the barns and grounds. Stylin enjoyed looking at herself in the reflective glass of the doors. :-)

Here's a final picture of Jenny, her horse, and her dog Millie. Millie had a blast once we got in the woods and could let her off the leash. It's nice when our schedules allow us to ride together. Can you tell that we like to ride short horses? :-)