The Golden Horseshoe Riding Club is a local group of people who enjoy horseback riding. Our current membership includes people from Clarksville, Greenville, East Berne, Westerlo, Galway, Duanesburg, Pattersonville, Nassau and Rensselaer. Our group is probably best known for our annual horse show, held the third Sunday in July each year at the Altamont Fair Grounds. The show is our major fund raiser for money we use to have educational programs for the members throughout the year.
We frequently have an expert come to work with members and their horses on improving our riding techniques or training methods for example. There are endless topics to be covered and we select programs based on member’s suggestions and needs.
Our other annual event is our fall Family Fun Day trail ride and picnic. We frequently tie in a game like a poker run, or scavenger hunt with the trail ride and award prizes to the winners. The picnic is usually a steak roast, which is a tradition that goes back 50 years.
The Golden Horseshoe Riding Club was organized in November 1953 and chartered May 28, 1954. In those days there were several local riding clubs in the area and each club held several “horseplays” each year. A horseplay consisted of 9 or 10 games, started at 12:00 noon and the entry fee was $1.00 per horse for the day. Each Horseplay started with the Grand Entry which was a parade of all the horses and riders entered that day, led by a rider carrying the American Flag, they rode several circuits around the ring while music played, then lined up in the center of the ring and the National Anthem was played. How times have changed!!!
In the late 50’s some judged classes were added to the Horseplay, horsemanship classes and a trail class. The judge was paid $25.00. In the early 60’s we transitioned to having just one larger show a year, 27 classes both games and judged. The judge was paid $50.00.
It was not all work and no play though, there was an annual overnight trail ride where everyone would ride or truck to a site large enough for a big campfire and lots of places to tie horses for the night, go for a trail ride in the afternoon, have a steak roast and camp for the night, have a breakfast cooked over the fire and go for another trail ride then return home. So you see, the steak roast is a time honored tradition. We have just shortened the riding time down to a couple of hours.
In 1975 the club put on it’s first 25 mile competitive trail ride sanctioned by the Eastern Competitive Trail Ride Assoc. The ride was based at Marsh’s Locust Knoll Farm in Clarksville for all but one of the 13 years it was run. It always attracted the full 45maximum entries and was one of the more popular rides on the ECTRA circuit which included an area from Maine to Virginia. We had riders from Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts as well as New York and Canada.
The ever popular annual horse show was held at Marsh’s Locust Knoll Farm from the beginning in 1954 up until 1982 when insurance issues prohibited them from hosting such an event. At that time we moved the event to the Altamont Fair Grounds where it has been held annually ever since – 22 years. Our show has grown from the 10 event Horseplay to this year’s program of 40 classes with 10 Champion/Reserve divisions. In honor of the original Horseplay which was an all game event, we are including a NEW class – the Mystery Class – which will be a game.
The show will be held July 18, 2004 beginning at 9:00, Donn Avallone will be our judge, we have had Donn many times as the judge for our shows and especially wanted him to judge this our 50th anniversary show. A relatively recent and very popular addition to our list of classes are the “Starter Rider and Starter Horse” classes. These classes are for riders and horses that are not at the cantering level of competition. Another very popular class is the trail class, which is set up on an outside course. To accommodate the huge number of entries – nearly 60 last year - the course will be open for judging at 8:30 AM and will close at 2:00 PM. For information on the show contact Marilyn Miles 768-2870, or Deb Tompkins 966-8629.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the club we are planning a reunion party which will be held November 13, 2004 at the Albany County Cooperative Extension building in Voorheesville. We are inviting all past members and looking forward to a great time renewing old acquaintances and reminiscing. There will be boards for displaying photos and memorabilia. If anyone has a photo or two from the “good old days” we would love to make a copy of it for our memory book that we are putting together. We are especially looking for photos of the past officers. If you find any you would like to share, or for more information on the reunion, contact Marilyn Miles, 768-2870 or Deb Tompkins, 966-8629.