and more— not to mention oodles of tack and expensive saddles. And if for some unforseen reason you don’t complete a ride, you don’t get credit for the ridden miles. I kept thinking how fun it would be to see how ALL my trail miles compare to others’ mileage across the entire country. And so, I put my thoughts into action and created the Top Trail Horse program.
Top Trail was formed primarily to satisfy my need to track my mileage, a little friendly competition, and to have fun while my horse(s) and I are getting great conditioning. It’s also for riders, such as myself, who have that need to track their miles and see their trails mapped because I like to keep a record of my all my ride miles: fun, conditioning, and competitive. I now have a Top Trail ride log and each of my horses have their very own ride log as well. When we reach milestones along the way, we earn Top Trail certificates and patches to commemorate them.
Competition comes in the form of Challenges: all of which are completed by riders and their equines hailing from across the country who pick their own trail!
Once a rider becomes a member of the Top Trail community, all challenge entry fees are waived! We currently have 62 opportunities for members to win a Top Trail Challenge, so long as he/she logs their trail rides. Join one of our Affiliate Groups, and there are even MORE opportunities to claim a prize.
The Top Trail program actually began as a Facebook Group in 2013, with the main competitive attraction being the Trail Horse Challenge. Because I’d been burned in the past by other riding programs where people reported their hours or miles by submitting a form, and no one knew where they stood until the end of the year — and even then, it was susceptible to the occasional fudged results. It was then that the decision was made to accept only recorded GPS tracks for a fairness to all and the added ability to see standings in as close to real time as possible.
Equine mileage was recorded on a spreadsheet when we first started. This form of record keeping became more and more difficult for me — especially as our membership grew! Fortunately, the Open Trail Project website (trail sharing website) allowed us to use their site for our tracking purposes, and this helped us get a great start!
Top Trail eventually began to evolve past the limitations of the Open Trail website’s abilities, and it became obvious we needed more flexibility and control to do that, so the decision was made to move the program to it’s own internet domain.
On January 1st of this year, we rolled out the new Top Trail Horse website. Most of our existing members transferred their miles to the new program, and many new members we’ve picked up along the way makes me incredibly grateful.
There’s so much packed into our program. It’s not just about riding to win! It’s about getting out and riding, enjoying the outdoors, connecting with others, and tracking miles. Whether it takes our riders years to reach milestones or mere months—it’s all good! Top Trail Horse members are there to celebrate with you whenever you get there!
Since the first of this year, our members have ridden over 17,000+ trail miles — a great indication that we are getting out there and riding!! It’s important that we continue to improve so we have sought feedback from our members, and plan to incorporate many of the suggestions they took time to provide, in the coming year.
We welcome all riders (and those who drive their horses, as well) to join our community. We are supportive, seek to build each other up and recognize great horsemanship on the journey. So if you would like a little
encouragement to get out and ride,
please join us! www.toptrailhorse.com
Jen Joines riding Kiche and ponying her mini, Kricket