Cross Southwest 26th Street at the right spot and you'll notice something most drivers never see: a narrow break in the curb, paved different from the rest of the sidewalk, wide enough for hooves but not for a car. It's a step-over, built as a condition of approval before the developer down the street could get a certificate of occupancy for the first single-family home in a new subdivision. Town planning records from a May 2025 meeting spell out exactly what was required: a new sidewalk along the south side of the street, repaving, and that step-over crossing, built specifically to allow pedestrian and equestrian access and nothing else.
That's not preservation. That's construction. In most Florida towns where ranch land gets platted into rooftops, the horse trails are what disappear first, grandfathered relics that quietly vanish as the last acreage sells. In Davie, the town's zoning process runs the other direction. New development doesn't erode the bridle path network. It's required to extend it.
The mechanism nobody notices until they own a horse here
Davie's own equestrian trails page is blunt about this: the town is still filling in missing links in its trail network by requiring new developments to build them, a process the town describes as ongoing since 1986. That same May 2025 meeting included a second, smaller detail that tells you how granular this gets. Planning staff discussed a 10-foot horse trail easement for a different parcel, confirming it would connect to an existing bridle path north of an equestrian center already in the area. One council member asked directly whether the easement would function as a bridle path. The answer was yes, and the point of the approval was to make that connection permanent.
If you keep a horse in Davie, or you're weighing whether to, this matters more than any festival or rodeo date. It means the riding network you have access to today is not the network's final size. It's a system still being assembled, parcel by parcel, as a condition of what gets built next to you.
Where the network actually goes right now
The backbone is Tree Tops Park, a 243-acre Broward County park at 3900 SW 100th Avenue with more than seven miles of dedicated horse trails, developed in cooperation with the South Florida Trail Riders Association. Riders get trails separated from the park's paved multi-use path, which is built for runners and cyclists instead. The equestrian side is sandy, shaded by a grove of mature oaks, and quiet enough that one rider's Tripadvisor review called it simply the best equestrian park in the area.
From there, the riding options branch out unevenly. Here's how the three main routes compare:
| Trail | Length | Surface | What it connects to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tree Tops Equestrian Trail | 0.8 mi loop | Sandy bridle path | Links to several other horse routes inside Tree Tops Park |
| Robbins Preserve | 1.4 mi | Mixed paved and sandy | Davie's longest horseback trail, with the most elevation gain of any horse trail in the area at 19 feet |
| Ivanhoe Parks Trail | Full length of SW 148th Ave | Roadside bridle path | Runs the Davie/Southwest Ranches border, with a bridge across the South New River Canal under discussion to extend it north |
That last one is worth sitting with. The Ivanhoe trail doesn't just serve one neighborhood. It runs along the boundary between suburban Davie and rural Southwest Ranches, and the town describes it as giving both communities a shared edge rather than a hard line. A bridge across the canal has been discussed to tie it into the trails to the north, which would turn two separate riding areas into one continuous route.
Who's actually using it
The trail network only matters if people are riding it, and Davie's equestrian businesses suggest plenty are. Bar-B-Ranch, at 3500 SW 121st Avenue, runs guided rides across its own 25-acre property by appointment, with trail guides who let riders trot or canter depending on comfort level. Just Ride, a newer operation established in 2024 inside what it calls Davie's equestrian district, runs private group trail rides and photo sessions along a lake and through shaded oak trails, describing itself as offering something most South Florida residents have never experienced: real ranch life, real horses, real nature.
Neither business exists because Davie preserved a museum piece. They exist because the riding infrastructure is functional enough, connected enough, and close enough to daily life that people build small businesses around it.
Planning an actual Saturday ride
If you're new to the network or just haven't ridden Tree Tops in a while, a few practical notes make the difference between a good morning and a frustrating one:
- Tree Tops Park charges a parking fee on weekends and holidays, but entrance is free if you arrive on foot, by bike, or on horseback, so trailering in and parking outside the fee area is worth considering if you're riding in from nearby.
- The equestrian trail sits on the east side of the park, separate from the paved multi-use path, so you won't be sharing tight corners with cyclists.
- Sun protection matters more than shade suggests. Both Tree Tops Equestrian Trail and Robbins Preserve have exposed stretches even though most of the route runs through tree cover.
- If you're extending a ride toward the Southwest Ranches line, the Ivanhoe trail along SW 148th Avenue is the connector, though the canal crossing north of it is still just a plan, not a built bridge.
What the growth actually means
Broward's visitor bureau puts Davie's total trail system at more than 187 miles across 1,800 acres of parks and open space, a scale that only holds up because the town keeps treating trail connectivity as a permit condition rather than a courtesy. That's the detail that separates Davie from towns where "horse country" is a marketing phrase for a shrinking number of large lots. Here, the paperwork that approves your neighbor's new driveway can also approve the trail segment that eventually connects your own property to Tree Tops.
If you already ride here, none of this changes your Saturday morning. But it's worth knowing that the network under your horse's feet is still being built, one subdivision agreement at a time, and that the town has been doing this since 1986 without much fanfare. Riding Davie's trails today means riding a system with more coming, not a system slowly running out of room.
If you ever find yourself wondering what a horse property near this trail network is actually worth in today's market, or you're weighing whether the acreage next door is worth adding to your own, Tommy Crivello Group can walk you through it. Their Request a Private Valuation option is built for exactly this kind of question, grounded in local knowledge rather than a generic estimate.
