Cracker Trail lures riders to a vanishing Old Florida

Most people on Valentine’s Day think about a nice dinner and a romantic evening. 

On this Valentine’s Day, more than 150 people were gathering in a 90-acre field near Parrish, towing loaded horse trailers and supplies as they prepared to spend a week in the saddle on a 116-mile ride to recreate a piece of Florida history.

They wouldn’t want it any other way. 

“I mean, you disconnect,” said Ardicio Galvao, who has done this ride with his wife, Christie, seven times. He was setting up camp chairs while his wife, Christie, and her daughter, Camron Courtright, were tending to their four horses.

“There's very few places in Florida where you can really see the stars anymore. There's something to be said about the stars and a campfire and quiet, you know; no noises, no cars, no nothing. It kind of brings you back down to earth again.”

It’s all part of the Florida Cracker Trail Association’s Annual Cross-State Ride, a trek from Bradenton to Fort Pierce, commemorating cattle drives across the state which began hundreds of years ago. 

“This ride is our celebration. This is our way of paying back,” said Mike Harrison, one of the ride’s main organizers.

Harrison said the route largely follows the same 116-mile trail first used by the Spanish.

"The Spanish would drop cattle off in Fort Pierce, and they would drive them to the Manatee River, to go on ships to go to Mexico.” 

The route, which largely follows State Road 64 and State Road 66, was at the time the only normally dry route across Florida. The Kissimmee River and its floodplains blocked a northern route, and Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades blocked any path to the south.

The early settlers used bullwhips to flush cows out of the palmetto scrub and spur on oxen that pulled their carts and wagons, according to the Trail Association’s website. 

The crack of the whips prompted the cowboys to become known as Florida Crackers. The sound can be heard for miles and was used to communicate between long distances. While there is a whip cracking contest set for one night of the ride, other campsites have set limits. “No cracking of whips by order of landowner!” the riding rules read.  

A test of horses and riders

It would have been a tough journey 100 years ago, Harrison said. “Most of those guys would have been under 16 years old,” he said. “Their dad would send them to Melbourne or someplace to buy cattle and they'd gone and bought 50 head and two teenage boys would have brought them back to Manatee County. It was pretty incredible.”

While today’s trail riders aren’t driving any cattle, it’s not a walk in the park, he said. “It's not a fun ride. It's an endurance ride. But we do it to keep our history alive. 

Photo by Jim DeLa

“Other people come here because it's the place to ride their horses. They don't realize until after the second day that, ”oh, man, this is a job.’” 

The first day is a short 15 miles, to mainly get the horses used to each other, or as Christie Galvao described it, “getting the ‘stupid’ out of them.”

“When you put 125 horses together, that first 30 minutes is the most dangerous 30 minutes on the planet,” Harrison said, because the horses are reacting to everything else going on.

For the 40 or so new riders each year, they quickly learn one hard lesson. “Asphalt. We've had people coming, they'll say, my horse is broke, this is a great horse. And they get bucked off.”

For the rest of the week, the riders will average about 20 miles a day, from the starting parade in Bradenton to a parade set Feb. 22 in downtown Fort Pierce. “It's literally about eight hours a day in a saddle,” Harrison said, with regular stops to water horses. 

Riders spend each night at ranches along the way, in tents, or as Harrison does, in his horse trailer. “It's not glamorous,” he said. 

That’s OK, said Ardicio Galvao.

“By the time you're done doing the ride, it's become addicting, you know, and it's not so much the riding itself, obviously. You get to see a beautiful piece of old Florida, which has almost gone.” 

The couple used to live in Davie, Florida but moved to Tennessee last year. It won’t stop them from riding the Cracker Trail. “We're like, listen, I don't care if we live in California, we're coming,” he said.  

The riders who come together every year for the ride have become family.

“It really is the people,” Galvao said. “It's a different caliber of people that you meet here. They're humble people, they're caring people, they lend a hand if they see you need something, they'll help you out.” 

The Galvaos have very special memories of the ride. They were married last year on the trail. “It was the only way I was going to be able to afford a big wedding,” Christie said.

After Ardicio proposed, Christie said there was never a thought of tying the knot any other place.

Photo by Jim DeLa

“There wasn't even any discussing it,” she said. “He's like, all right, so when and where? And I'm like, “I think we should do Cracker Trail.’ He said ‘perfect.’ And that was it.” Mike Harrison presided at the ceremony.

For Harrison, the ride is something his entire family looks forward to.  

“My kids, I've raised Lonnie, Rick, Jason, Miranda, Mikayla, Nicky, Jared, Marissa … I think that's it … on this ride,” he said. 

Daughter Makayla said she wouldn’t miss “being with my friends and horses for a week. I grew up on it.” she said. 

“They didn't want to go to Disney World," Harrison said. "My kids have quit jobs because they couldn't get off, so they could ride this ride. Because it's who they are, you know what I mean?”

The trail ride becomes a part of you. “I picked up a saying: The Cracker Trail Ride would either get in you or get on you," Harrison said. 

“If it gets on you, you wanna take a shower and get it off. You're done,” he said.

“But if it gets in you, you're not quitting and that's what it did for me.”