Horse riding in the North York Moors

Let us be plain about what this page is. We walk these moors and we drive them, and we say so all over this site. We do not ride, and nothing here should imply otherwise. What we have done is gather what the North York Moors National Park Authority publishes about horse riding and join it up in one place, because it was scattered and, in places, effectively unfindable. The riding itself is not ours. Corrections from people who do ride here are wanted, and they will be credited: if something on this page is wrong on the ground, tell us.

Where you may ride, and where you may not

This is the part people get wrong, and getting it wrong does not earn you a wrong turn, it earns you a confrontation with a landowner. The National Park's own horse riding page states that riders must stick to bridleways, byways and restricted byways, and that riders should ride carefully around livestock to avoid spooking animals. That is the whole instruction, and we are not going to improvise beyond it.

One further rule the National Park states works in riders' favour: on shared trails, cyclists must give way to horse riders. The full network, including which paths carry which rights, is on the National Park's rights of way pages, which is where we would send anyone planning beyond the routes named below.

The named routes

Four routes can be named with confidence, because the National Park or the British Horse Society publishes each of them.

St Aelred's Pilgrim Trail is a 50-mile route linking 12 churches in Helmsley and Upper Ryedale to Rievaulx Abbey. The North York Moors and Dales Ride is a 55-mile circular, four-day route from the British Horse Society. The Rosedale Loop is reached by a free annual permit from the Spaunton Estate; the National Park publishes a telephone number for the estate office, which we deliberately do not republish here, because numbers change and a dead number is worse than none. The National Park's page has the current contact.

The Cinder Track, the former Scarborough to Whitby railway, is a riding route as well as a walking and cycling one, and it is the gentlest 21 miles on this list. Our Cinder Track guide covers the surface, the access points and the tea rooms along it.

Forests and beaches

Forest riding is permitted at Dalby, Cropton, Harwood Dale, Broxa and Langdale forests. Dalby is the one set up for a day out, with parking, a visitor centre and waymarked trails of every grade, and our Dalby Forest guide covers the practical side. On the coast, the beaches at Saltburn and Sandsend permit horse riders; Sandsend sits at the seaward end of our Whitby to Sandsend walk, if the non-riders in the party want their own route.

We state no permit requirement, seasonal restriction, tide rule or time-of-day rule for any forest or beach here, because we have not verified any, and they are exactly the kind of thing that varies. The National Park's tide-times advice applies at the beaches.

Trekking and riding centres

Four centres are named by the National Park: Bilsdale Riding Centre at Hawnby, Boltby Pony Trekking and Trail Riding Centre, Borrowby Equestrian Centre near Staithes, and Friars Hill Riding Stables at Sinnington. We have checked none of them, so there are no prices, opening times, lesson types, age or weight limits here, and no claims about what any of them offers. The National Park's page carries the listings. Friars Hill also appears on our guide to accessible days out, because the National Park lists it under accessible outdoor activities.

Horseboxes and trailers: the gap we are working on

The National Park's page does not say where you can park a horsebox or a trailer, and neither, as far as we can find, does anyone else. That is the practical problem nobody addresses, and it is the same gap we have just started filling for caravans and motorhomes. We do not have the answer yet, and we will not invent one.

What we can say is that the road constraints that stop a caravan apply to anything long and heavy, and a towed horsebox is both. Sutton Bank is prohibited to caravans and trailers, Rosedale Chimney Bank is around one in three with hairpins, and the old-town streets at Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and Staithes are hopeless in anything long. The full picture, the banned roads, the punishing ones and the places you cannot turn round, is on our caravans and motorhomes page.

We name no car park as horsebox-suitable, not one, until we have stood in it. If you ride here and you know the good places to park an outfit, please tell us. We are working on this, and first-hand knowledge from people who tow here is the only honest way to fill the gap.

What we do not know yet

A wrong riding fact is worse than no riding fact: it sends someone down a byway with a horse, or onto a beach at the wrong state of the tide. So here, plainly, is what this page does not know. We do not know where horsebox and trailer parking exists anywhere in the park. We do not know of any permit, season or tide restriction for the forests or the beaches beyond the National Park's tide-times advice. We do not have the statutory definitions of the rights of way categories, and we will not improvise the law. We know nothing about the four riding centres beyond their names and places. We do not know whether the Rosedale Loop permit carries conditions. We do not know whether any of the long routes have off-road stabling or overnight arrangements.

We are working on all of it, and the fastest way to make this page better is you. If you ride these routes, or you find something here wrong on the ground, please tell us. Corrections from people who ride here will be credited, and they are what no official page can copy.