Best of America by Horseback is a fast moving, top quality television series that takes
viewers to beautiful riding locations. Hosted by Tom Seay, the show is scenic,
educational and informative. It is designed to give horse owners the confidence and
knowledge to travel to these wonderful locations with their own horses as well as
offering riding vacation locations that supply horses to those that do not have their own.
Best of America by Horseback television series features a different riding location each
week. Host Tom Seay will show you how to get there, the facilities available for you and
your horses, and of course, the trails. Tom will ride the trails at every location and show
you the terrain, the footing, and the difficulty level of the trails. He will show you the
access to the camping area and if it is adequate for larger rigs, level, and what each
facility offers. He will show you the stalls, paddocks, tie lines or whatever is available at
that location. He will talk with local riders for the inside scoop on their favorite trails,
vistas, etc.
Each program features educational and informative segments with planning a trip and
traveling with horses, a spotlight of products for horses and riders, and music from
talented artists all over the country.
The On the Road segment covers travel tips, such as tips on changing a flat tire on
your horse trailer while traveling, what questions to ask when checking out a riding
location to assure you and your horses will have a pleasant and safe riding experience,
and other good, helpful information to consider while planning your first or next riding
vacation with your own horse. The Trailer Tips segment gives good consumer tips
such as what to look for when purchasing a horse trailer, what questions to ask to make
sure you get the right size truck for your trailer size and weight, considerations such as
gas vs. diesel, standard vs. automatic transmission, etc.
The Trail Tips segment features nationally known horse clinician Kerry Kuhn. Kerry
travels with Best of America by Horseback giving public clinics daily and is available for
private clinics. He has been training horses since he was 12 years old and loves helping
people better communicate with their horses, making them better, more confident
riders. In turn, confident riders make trail riding and all horse related activities more
enjoyable for horse and rider.
The Product Spotlight showcases products on the market for you and your horses,
farms or even your rigs. They show you what each product is designed to do, how to put
them together and how they work.
And what camping trip with your horse would be complete without sitting around the
campfire listening to good cowboy, country western, or bluegrass music. The producers
of Best of America by Horseback, held music auditions in Texas, Georgia and
Washington D.C., for musical talent for the show. They found a great variety of talented
musicians and feature the best of them in the shows. One of their favorite musicians
discovered at the talent show is Del Shields. Del is a cowboy singer, songwriter and
poet, who regularly travels and performs with Best of America by Horseback. Not long
ago, Del was #2 on the Cowboy Sunset Music Charts, has an album at #6 and another
song at #9.
The concept of this exciting series is a result of the tenth anniversary of The American
Transcontinental Trail Ride. In 1995, series host, Tom Seay and his wife Pat, led the
ride from Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia, to Imperial Beach, California, every
step of the way by horseback. A total of 256 riders joined them and their core group on
different segments of the trip. They rode over 3,000 miles from coast to coast in four
and a half months. After ten years of staying at home farming and running his
horseback outfitting business out of Graves Mountain Lodge in Virginia, and only
traveling with their horses on short vacations, Tom was ready to do the trip again to
celebrate the tenth anniversary. Pat, however, asked him to consider trailering his
horse, instead of riding every step of the way, back to some of the best places they had
been on the trip. That way, they could cover more ground and visit the Best of America
by Horseback.
Tom and Pat had been in the television business for many years, but had taken a break
from the fast paced, stressful life of running a television station to taking guests on day
trips and overnight trips by horseback for more than 15 years. They both missed
producing outdoor TV shows, but loved traveling and riding their horses all over the
country. So, they came up with the concept of this new series and felt RFD-TV would be
the best channel to reach the most horse owners and outdoor lovers.
The Best of America by Horseback weekly TV series, having begun in July 2005, has
featured various riding locations from the plains of Texas to the beaches of North
Carolina, through the canyons in the Texas Panhandle, and along the Suwannee River in
Florida. They take the viewer past beautiful waterfalls in the mountains of Tennessee
and North Carolina, on working ranches, and into the Black Hills of South Dakota, Big
Horn Mountains of Wyoming, herding buffalo in Minnesota, as well as historic locations
in the northeast. As a result of overwhelming requests by viewers to ride with them, in
2007, they began Best of America by Horseback's Grand Tour of America. Tom and the
television crew are visiting each state over the next few years where viewers can come
out and ride with them and be a part of the production of a television segment on that
location. Viewers can find the ride nearest them on our webpage at
www.bestofamericabyhorseback.com.
The producers welcome input from viewers and riders for future featured riding
locations. Please go to the website for information on our Best of America by
Horseback Membership Club.
