Last Saturday, the Cherokee County Saddle Club held its first Annual Trail Challenge at Garland Mountain. Originally intending to ride in it, I ended up helping set up the course and transporting judges to and from  their obstacles.  While doing so, I made a short video. Click Here to view it.  Congratulations to CCSC for a very succesful event.

I have a promotional video that’s been available on DVD for quite a while.  It’s been shorten and put on Youtube. If there’s anything I can do to assist you in buying or selling a horse property in the north Georgia mountains just let me know.

f you’re thinking of selling your horse farm, let me recommend to you that your first step should be to get an appraisal of your property.  With all the negative news that’s appearing in the media these days, I’m sure we’re all aware of the current real estate market conditions. Having a realistic opinion of the value of your farm is critical to a successful sale.  I’ve been fortunate to get 3 contracts on horse farms in the last few months.  In two situations, the buyer and seller couldn’t come to an agreed-to price and the negotiations stalled.   Fortunately, in each case, the parties agreed to have the property appraised. Once that objective evaluation was made known to both parties, negotiations continued to successful conclusions.    Having a current appraisal and sharing it with a potential buyer takes away all the subjectivity and generalizations that we see in the media on a daily basis and allows both parties to make decisions on the specifics of the farm itself.  If you’re thinking of selling, get an appraisal done by a qualified Appraiser

This past Saturday Janet and I hosted our local club in our annual Moderate Trail Challenge.  I call it moderate because it’s not at all as difficult as Craig Cameron’s Extreme Trail Challenge.  Ours is basically a 2 mile timed event  with some “speed bumps” along the way. We had twenty contestants and the winning time was a hair more than 19 minutes.  Chick Filet in Ellijay catered lunch. It was a gorgeous day and this event and people remind me why I’m a tree hugger in north Georgia.

I went to the annual Chattahoochee Trail Horse Association Poker Ride this past Saturday at Jake Mountain in north Georgia.  Took Chief, my appaloosa gelding, since he hadn’t been ridden in a while.  The CTHA does a great job in running this event and it’s for a worthy cause – trails maintenance.  The cold weather spell this weekend caused the turnout to be lower than expected, but the sun was out and the trails were dry.  The 3 hour ride was just what my boy needed and we had a wonderful time.  The CTHA has turned into a great riding club over the last 15 years or so and we trail riders are lucky to have such a dedicated group looking out for our trails.

The Chattahoochee Trail Horse Association’s annual fundraiser for maintenance of the trails in Georgia’s National Forest and State Parks is scheduled for Saturday, November 6th.   Contribute to the preservation of our trails by participating in its poker ride at the Jake Mountain Horse Camp in the Chattahoochee National Forest.  It looks to be a real fun event for a worthy cause. Click here for the Flyer.

I attended this year’s Southeast Trails Conference held at the Norcross Marriott last week. It was hosted by the CTHA with help from the BCHNG. Keynote speaker was Rick Lamb of RFD-TV and Road to the Horse fame.  If you’re an avid trail rider on public land then this is the most important event of the year.  Speakers were from the various government agencies (National Forest, State Parks, etc) who discussed accomplishments, issues and challenges facing their areas of responsibilities.  It was a very informative, well run event.  Kudos to the organizers and hosts.