More than a hundred miles of trail run through Bedford, and not one mile of it sits on land the town owns. The lanes cross backyards, pastures, working farms, and dirt roads that belong to private individuals, and every one of those individuals has to keep agreeing, year after year, to let horses and hikers cross their property. There is no parks department maintaining this system. There is no easement recorded by eminent domain. The whole network survives because the Bedford Riding Lanes Association asks landowners to say yes, and they keep saying it.
The tradition is older than the association itself. A sign on Bedford Green notes the green was laid out in March 1681 as a common for cattle, horses, and swine, so the idea of shared ground running through private holdings has been part of this town for more than three centuries. The modern version started in 1916, when a group of local horsemen and large property owners linked their lanes so Bedford's fox hunters could ride cross-country to meets without touching pavement. By 1920 that informal arrangement had become the Bedford Riding Lanes Association, and the trails it stitched together now connect Bedford, Mount Kisco, Katonah, Bedford Hills, Bedford Corners, and Pound Ridge into one of the largest remaining networks of private trails in the region.
Where the Fall Pace Still Starts
Twice a year, the BRLA turns its trail system into a competition course, and both times it starts from the same place: the John Jay Homestead in Katonah, a hamlet of Bedford. Teams of two to four riders set out on a marked route through galloping fields, water crossings, go-arounds, and a mix of walking treks and jumps. Early that morning, before anyone else is on the course, an experienced horse and rider run the trail as fast as it's safe to go, and that ride sets the pace every other team is judged against. Divisions run Hunt, Pleasure, Western, and Junior, and the day ends with lunch, a silent auction, and an awards ceremony under a tent.
The fall pace has landed in almost the same week for years running: September 11 in 2022, September 10 in 2023, September 8 in 2024. This year's BRLA events calendar lists September 19 as its next scheduled date on the trails, consistent with that same early-September pattern, which means by the time you're reading this, the course has already been ridden, the pace horse has already gone out, and the lanes are back to their ordinary traffic of dog walkers and casual riders rather than competing teams.
The Lanes Do More Than Host a Hunt
Bedford's trail system carries a hunting heritage, but the organizations that share its lanes now do work that has nothing to do with fox hunts or ribbon competitions. Three in particular use the same ground for a different purpose:
- Access Equestrian runs an adaptive-therapeutic riding program for children and adults with disabilities and is a licensed U.S. Pony Club Riding Center, open to riders of all ages and abilities.
- Endeavor Therapeutic Horsemanship provides equine-assisted activities and therapies for people with a broad range of special needs.
- 13 Hands Equine Rescue specializes in the rescue and rehabilitation of horses that were unwanted, abused, or headed for slaughter.
None of these groups need a hunt club membership or a fox-hunting pedigree to use the lanes. They need the same thing every other rider needs: a landowner willing to keep the trail open across their property. That's the quiet mechanism holding the whole system together. A century-old sporting tradition and a therapeutic riding program for kids with disabilities run on the identical piece of infrastructure, and neither one owns an inch of it.
A 230-Acre Reminder That Trails Need Working Farms
One of the first things a visitor sees entering Bedford is Sunnyfield Farm, 230 acres of rolling pasture, yellow stables, and grazing horses. It's a working farm in the fullest sense: several barns support lessons and competitive training, and it operates as a leading thoroughbred breeding operation. Sunnyfield foals have gone on to run in the Kentucky Derby, and in the spring of 2017 the farm welcomed two foals sired by Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.
Sunnyfield matters to the trail system for a reason that has nothing to do with its bloodlines. A private trail network only stays scenic and rideable if the land around it keeps functioning as farmland rather than turning into something else. There's no ordinance requiring Sunnyfield to remain a horse farm, and no zoning rule that keeps the pastures open. It stays a farm because the family that runs it keeps farming it, the same way the trail lanes stay open because the neighbors who own them keep agreeing to the arrangement.
The Calendar Between the Paces
The two hunter paces are the headline events, but the BRLA calendar runs a lot more often than twice a year. A Duck Derby kicks off the season in April, alongside a Spring Trail Clean-Up & Lunch that gets the lanes ready for the year. Bedford Library has partnered on Tales on the Trails, a family walk paired with story time, and there's a standing Doggie Trail Walk for anyone who just wants to bring the dog. Late spring brings Boots & BBQ, a barn dinner, and summer has featured Tavern on the Trails, a traveling cocktail party that moves from one BRLA landowner's home to the next along the lanes. A Birds & Bagels bird walk rounds out the warmer months with breakfast built in.
None of this requires a horse. Riders looking for a guided experience on the network can book a Bedford Hack through Manhattan Riding Club, a small group ride of up to eight people covering roughly five miles with optional jumps over logs, coops, and stone walls, all of it avoidable if you'd rather not. The rides are built for visitors, with pickup coordinated from the Metro-North Harlem Line at Katonah or Bedford Hills, so someone with no connection to Bedford's horse culture can still spend an afternoon on trails that a hundred private landowners have kept open since before most of their houses were built.
That's the part easy to miss from outside: the lanes look like public parkland, wide and maintained and dotted with historical markers, but every foot of them depends on a private decision that gets remade every season. Sunnyfield keeps farming. The homeowners along the route keep the gates unlocked. The BRLA keeps asking. Nobody in Albany or White Plains signed anything that requires this to continue.
Tara Siegel keeps an eye on Bedford's trail calendar the same way she follows everything else that makes this town run, because the two rarely stay separate for long. If you're curious about the lanes, the paces, or anything else that gives Bedford its particular rhythm, reach out anytime.
