by Emily Darrell
Staff Writer

It’s a great time of year to be outside, but several area horseback riders say they haven’t been able to take full advantage of the springtime weather.

Since April of last year, a portion of the trails inside the Powhatan Wildlife Management Area have been closed to horses.

According to Rick Busch, assistant director at the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF), the group that manages the area, there is only one trail – the “Dogwood” trail – that has been closed.

“Virtually all the trails that have always been open are still open,” Busch said.

However Shirley Charnock, a recreational equestrian whose property lies adjacent to the wildlife area, says that “around half” the trails are now closed, and many of the ones that are closed are “the prettiest ones.” 
Charnock and other riders also lament that none of the trails that remain open make a complete loop.

Last May, a meeting between VDGIF and area horseback riders was held in the Village in order for the department to discuss the reasons for the trail closures – primarily erosion and the possible threat to wild turkey habitat. Basically, said VDGIF, the trails need time to rest.

Busch, who was present at the meeting, said that at first he couldn’t understand the riders’ need for a loop trail, “why they objected so strenuously to looking at the same trail twice.”

Busch, who is not an equestrian, said he learned from the riders that horses don’t like travelling back the same way they came: it makes them nervous. “I did learn a lot,” Busch said of the meeting.

Busch said, from his perspective, the meeting was a successful first step – but was just that: a first step. He said that he has expected more active involvement from the horseback riders following the meeting, but “hasn’t seen much interest.”

One rider, who prefers not to be identified, said she sees things a little differently: “We’ve tried to be really positive and work with the agency and feel like we’ve not been making any headway.”

She said that members of VDGIF at one point told her that the trails would be reopened last fall. Then she was told they would be reopened this spring.

Charnock said that, in the spirit of cooperation, the Powhatan Riding Association even donated gravel to be placed on the closed trails to help with erosion. She said that the agency accepted the gravel, though she believes it was applied to the wrong section of trail.

Rider Linda Jamerson said she left last May’s meeting with the overall sense that “nothing would be done.”

“Nothing that I know, personally, has come of that meeting. Except for getting everybody off Lee Ware’s back,” Jamerson said. (Ware helped arrange the meeting and served as its moderator.)

“I just don’t understand what the horseback riders have done to be pushed off the property, to be shunned by the wildlife management group,” Jamerson said.

Busch said that, when it comes down to it, horses just aren’t his agency’s main concern.

“Horseback riding is not really related to wildlife, and not really related to our mission,” Busch said. “On this point we just disagree.”