Trail riding: A Black trail ride reality TV series based on African-American trail ride line dance culture… I think that should be the next big hit show, reality series, or docu-series on television. The cast for Season 1 should be a mix of TikTok and social media’s popular Black trail ride dancers, including some of the lesser-known trail riders who came across my timeline and helped get me out of bed and break an almost four-year cycle of inactivity and heartbreak after losing my 24-year-old daughter, Ivy Brook Walker, to fentanyl poisoning in 2021.
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| A trail ride TV show based on black trail ride field party culture (credit: Traciy Curry-Reyes) |
Up until now, I have not seen any trail ride line dancing shows on TV—especially Black trail riders. If I’m wrong about that and somehow missed it… well, let me know.
This isn’t a true pitch, but more like a thank you to the trail ride community. It’s me putting the spotlight on them, because I’d love to see a show featuring these trail riders.
Many will think I’m crazy or having a midlife crisis. They’ll say I just wish I was young again… well, yes, that’s partially true. I definitely wish I was a young woman again… lol. But you know, trail ride line dancing isn’t about me trying to find my youth again or me trying to compete with the younger girls. It’s me admiring them. It’s me saying, “Hey, I miss my daughter, and I miss dancing and laughing with her.”
We danced a lot together when my daughter Ivy was little. She remembers me dancing around the kitchen when it was just the two of us. And well, at some point, life got serious… and I sank into a life of true crime stories, which gave me a pretty grim outlook on the world.
I did this story to say, “Ivy, I’m dancing again.”
Black trail riding and Southern Soul music are taking America by storm.
The trail riders are stepping to some of the hottest Southern soul, Black country, and Cajun-Creole Zydeco tracks out there, with a little blues and Southern hip-hop on the side.
It’s a brilliant fusion of genres where Black meets country.
Trail ride culture has increased in visibility over the last several years, but something about this year feels different—there’s been an explosion of interest on social media. The dances are all going viral.
Everybody is learning Black country line dance. Let’s take a look. People of all races, colors, and shades—people of different sizes, different ages... even people like me--people on the larger size who are over 50.
Even celebrities are dancing to these trail ride line dance songs—Phaedra Parks, Khia, Jennifer Hudson, and Niecy Nash as well as some big-name politicians like Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris.
2025 has been a huge year for Southern soul singers and Black trail ride creators. 803Fresh attended the BET Awards for the first time and brought some of Tik Tok's most popular trailriders.
Songs like “Boots on the Ground: Where Dem Fans At” by 803 Fresh, “Keep On Steppin’” by Mike Clark Jr., “Country Girl” by Tonio Armani, and “Cowgirl Trailride” by S Dott featuring Tonio Armani—along with many other Southern soul singers and Black trail ride content creators.
Taking in the country scene (credit: Traciy Curry-Reyes
Trail ride Southern Soul music gives me that backyard, backwoods feel. And I love that. I am unable to articulate what I am hearing in this music, but I am hearing an instrument or a sound that is familiar to me. It's giving me 1970s soul music. It's giving me "being in my grandmother's candle-lit living room on a Saturday night as we dance to soul music, like Al Green and The Isley Brothers."
Trail riding is appealing to the masses, and everybody is so happy while they're doing these Black country line dances. That's the thing that stands out to me, so I want to see a trail ride reality show or docuseries. I want them to go behind the scenes and show me what happens at the trail ride, specifically, the field parties.
Because it’s a movement now.
I know this is different from what I normally talk about. Normally, I talk about true crime, movies, and TV shows. Well, this is a potential TV show. I'm teasing it as a potential TV show because trail riding and line dancing are exploding everywhere. I think people want to see a television show based on Black trail ride culture.
For myself and many others, the attraction is the Southern feel it has to it—a lot of down-home soul. And when I say Southern, I’m talking Deep South... all day long...The Deep South.
I know we have Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Texas, and the Black rodeo—and I know Texas is Southern too—but I’m intentionally distinguishing the Deep South.
If there is a trail ride reality show, I’d love for its first season to feature trail riders from the Deep South. I’m talking….
South Carolina
Louisiana
Georgia
Alabama
Mississippi
South Carolina is my first choice because they are the first trailriders TikTok's algorithm brought to me. The show could also feature some prominent dancers in other states as well.
A trail ride reality show would be good because I'm not going to go to any "trail rides." You've got people like me who aren't going anywhere. I want to see it on TV. I want to view it from my living room. That's right! TikTok's most popular dancers.
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| credit: Traciy Curry-Reyes |
Black Country
And not just the dancing interests me.
I'd like to know about Black ranch life. I was raised in the suburbs in Alabama, and I have lived in the rural part of town for close to 20 years, so I see horses and cows every day, but I don't see African American people riding them. Just recently, I found out that Alabama has a large trail ride community. That's so interesting to me.
This new trailride reality show can show us "Black country." Because from what I am hearing from the real trail riders is—there is more to trail ride life than---what I now understand are called--- "field parties." I, like many others, had labeled all of it trailriding.
Here's the imagery I want to see: I want to see cowboys and cowgirls "putting the horses in the stable." I want them to show us "how to ride, ride, ride, ride." I want snakeskin belts, ladies in their daisy dukes, and guys in cowboy hats.
*This article is still in progress