Southold Town Board Unanimously Votes to Approve New Horse Trail

The Southold Town board voted unanimously to approve a new horse trail on the Forestbrook property, during the town board meeting on Tuesday night.

Local horse enthusiasts began asking the town board for a trail to ride horses after Suffolk County enacted a ban on horse swimming in Cedar Beach County Park in August.

The new trail, which would be built on the 22 acres of land in Hog’s Neck on North Bayview, will incorporate approximately two-thirds of the area at no cost to the town.

A large part of the trail had already been done several years ago so, creating the trail would just requires cutting back the overgrowth and trimming back trees.

Commissioner of Public Works Jeff Standish believes that the work would not take a long time, however, given the departments’ current commitments, the work won’t start for several weeks when the weather gets colder, which would also reduce other concerns such as ticks, according to Town Supervisor Scott Russell.

The management plan adopted for the property permits ‘passive use’ and there is no provision for ‘active use.’

Limiting the number of riders at any given time would maintain the “passive” requirement, so the town intends on doing this by simply limiting the parking, according to Russell.

Also, there will be no organized events, formal or informal, will be allowed.

The trail has been closed for 11 years to both horse owners and hikers, but when it reopens it will be for “exclusive use by horses/riders” because of liability concerns, according to Russell.

“The only town-sanctioned use has been for hunting during our deer management program’s scheduled hunts,” Russell said. “It is a large enough piece that I am sure we can accommodate hikers in the near future. We did receive one correspondence objecting to the exclusion of hikers but, I am sure, we can address his concerns.”

While the one resident might be upset, horse lovers, such Samantha Perry, a local horse owner and member of Pony Swim, a group of residents who take their horses and ponies to the beach to swim in the Peconic Bay during the summer months, are very excited to hear the news.

“It will be so nice to have access to a trail in Southold and not have to trailer out to other towns to enjoy a trail ride,” Perry said. “Horses and equestrians are very much a part of the Southold community.”

Perry also says that she‘s happy local horse riders are finally being “considered and included.”

“I’d like to thank Scott Russell and the Town board for approving it along with Jill [Franke] and Cindy [Hilary] for their perseverance in seeing it become a reality,” she said. “Hoping this will not be the only trail access on Preserved/Town land we have in the future.”