Tom Seay of the Fredericksburg area (foreground) leads the trail ride. View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

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Tom Seay's Long Ride

Fredericksburg-area entrepreneur leads horseback trail ride out West. By Paul Sullivan

Date published: 6/6/2009

EVERY NOW and then I like to call Tom Seay and ask what he's doing. I have never gotten a dull answer.

When I called this week, he said something about New Mexico. Bad connection, I figured. But no, it turns out he's riding the range out there, so I asked the highlight of his latest adventure. He said there were too many to choose just one.

"I'd have to say it was pretty exciting riding in the ruts the freight wagons wore on the Old Santa Fe Trail," he said, "But then sleeping under the stars in the desert at White Sands stands out, too." The same for the friendly families who welcomed his group into Old Mesilla, a tiny historic adobe village. "It looked like a miniature version of a Williamsburg of the West," said Seay.

"Tommy," to the many who know him, is one of the most colorful characters we've known in this part of Virginia, a true original.

Let me back up a bit. As I write, he's nearing Raton, N.M., trail boss for 48 happy riders on his northbound Border-to-Border horseback adventure. They had covered well over 500 miles of the ride this week, with the Colorado line almost in sight. By Sept. 5, when they meet their Royal Canadian Mounted Police escort and cross the northern border, they'll have covered some 1,800 miles.

The journey, a year and a half in the planning, isn't the first of this kind for Seay, who has done similar trail rides from Atlantic to Pacific shores and another commemorating the historic ride of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.

The current ride is part of Seay's television series, "Best of America by Horseback," and will air in half-hour weekly segments on RFD-TV, a Texas cable channel, starting this fall. Satellite television carries the network, and two-minute promos for the current ride will start next week.

Seay's wife, Pat, who has worked with him as a producer since the days long ago when they operated RCC-TV, a Spotsylvania County-based cable channel, continues in that role for the new series.

A diverse group

BIRDING TOUR: Saturday, June 13, 8 a.m., George Washington's Ferry Farm, 268 Kings Highway, Stafford. Paul Nasca, staff archaeologist and member of the Fredericksburg Birding Club, will lead the tour and help identify birds from the 135 species at Ferry Farm. Appropriate for ages 12 and older. $5 (cash or check only). No tour if raining. 540/373-0732.

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Date published: 6/6/2009