Threading in and out between the farmland, golf courses, and houses of East Hampton lies a maze of trails that once traversed most of the town’s now developed land. These little-known trails, though less extensive, are still used by a few savvy horsewomen and the occasional adventurous hiker.
The riders — Sara Hobel, Nancy Hodin, Virginia Gray, Christina Isaly, and Amanda Kraus — are based at Amagansett Equestrian on Town Lane, an equine oasis recently leased from Job Potter by Ms. Isaly, who owns Rosie’s Restaurant on Amagansett Main Street. “I personally wanted my kids to be more involved with all things horses,” she said, “so I rented the barn,” which offers direct access to the old trails.
“I am riding with the original trail riders,” Ms. Isaly said with a big smile. “I feel like these older women are contemporaries, just wiser.”
The story of the original trail riders stretches back decades. Ms. Hodin, an independent filmmaker turned media outreach expert for the Global Coalition on Aging, and Ms. Hobel, executive director of the Horticultural Society of New York, met at Dartmouth College not long after women were first admitted to the all-male stronghold.
“We rode in college together and became the best of friends,” Ms. Hodin said. “I started coming out here to ride because Sara’s parents had a place out here. It’s just been fabulous. For the most part, the places I’ve ridden have always been informal types of environments. No big fancy show barns.”
Ms. Hobel grew up riding bareback at her parents’ farm in Vermont, and when they bought a house in Springs, she said, it was a chance to get back in the saddle. “I worked in the city and came out on the weekends to ride. I found this community that rode everywhere in a very informal manner. It was perfect.”
The trails are mapped today, but when the college classmates began their rides, Ms. Hodin said, the terrain was completely unknown. “We would walk outside in all weather and saddle up our horses,” she recalled. “East Hampton Golf Club was not a golf club at that point, so we used to ride all over that land. I was up to my chest in the snow. Looking back, it’s pretty freaky. But I have to say, running into a fox den carved into the snow is an incredible sight.”
One of Ms. Hobel’s first trail-riding goals, she said, was to find a path that stretched through the woods and reached the edge of the ocean. “After many rides, I finally got all the way out of the woods and stepped into this fantastic open field in Stony Hill,” she remembered. “Sitting on my horse, I could just see the horizon of the ocean, and I knew I’d made it.”
Without maps or smartphones, the riders were forced to find their way through trial and error. “There was a time we rode near Pussy’s Pond and the blacksmith shop [in Springs], and you just think to yourself, how the hell did I get here,” Ms. Hodin said. “Sometimes it’s just practice and going out and losing your way. Having someone with a sense of direction is good, but it’s all part of the fun. Thankfully, we have never been in a situation where someone had to go out and find us.”
An often lifesaving characteristic of horses is an uncanny ability to find their way home. Ms. Gray can testify to that. She met Ms. Hodin and Ms. Hobel last year soon after acquiring her sixth horse, Squire. “Before I joined our barn, I had ridden trails from the highway all through the Grace Estate Preserve,” she said. “We would take three-to-four-hour rides. We had the Trotting Trail, the Jumping Trail, and other names before they were officially on the map. But the horses always knew their way back to the barn. You must be careful — they will shoot out in front of cars because it’s the fastest way back. But yes, they know how to get back. I used to go out alone, and my horse could find the way back if I got lost.”
Ms. Kraus, the C.E.O. of United States Rowing, is the daughter of the artist and sculptor Maggie Kotuk, an esteemed horsewoman here. Ms. Kraus has been trail-riding since age 8. “It’s been such a big part of my life,” she said. “I remember being scared sometimes of the trails because my mom thought I was more competent than I was at such a young age. But Sara would always be there to worry about me. Now, decades later, these women have acquired new companions to the group, but the sentiment of love and protection for each other is the same. With Christina leasing the barn, it’s a dream come true. The barn is exactly what we have always wanted: a supportive environment where everyone can just enjoy.”
“I would describe our barn as open-minded, open-hearted, and living, but with a tinge of risk,” Ms. Isaly said. “People now live in a bubble-wrapped type of world, and riding through these trails is freeing. Riding with these women is camaraderie, safety, and consideration. These women really have seen and done everything.”
One key to happiness on horseback, said Ms. Gray, is continuity. “I just keep riding all year. I try to ride six days a week. I just love it. There is this part of an estate where you can gallop alongside each other. My horse loves to go fast, so I let everybody go ahead of me, and I hold him back. And then I let him go fast.”
Riding through the woods is especially magical, said Ms. Hodin. “You’re riding in the ravine, and the light is shining through the trees, and the sunlight is bursting through the bushes at the perfect angle, and you think that you’re about to see a unicorn,” she said. “I’ve been riding with Sara, and we see this foliage that is green, but we say we’ve never seen that color before. We are both in awe, filled with wonder, and just filled with emotion. It’s the narcotic that makes me keep going out. This is something you just can’t get anywhere else. And I’m lucky enough to be doing it with my best friends.”
