Everything Horses and Livestock® Magazine Feb 2021 Vol 6 Issue 1

Everything Horses and Livestock Magazine ®

The Resurrection of a Trail Riding Campgrounds By Ed McCarty

triggered by debt and a lack of land, was foreclosure of the Flying R Ranch on November 1 st , 2019. The above mentioned “prospective buyer” purchased the ranch at the foreclosure auction and subsequently offered me the position of ranch manager. As could be expected, there were numerous delays in the actual date possession for the new owner (and me!) brought about by the physical encumbrance of vacating the property and conducting a foreclosure auction but possession was finally granted mid-April 2020. We opened as a completely new entity on Memorial Day weekend 2020.

Many of you readers were familiar with, and possibly even frequented, the Flying R Ranch near West Plains, Mo.

with Terry’s vision for the complex, made an attractive offer which was ultimately refused. The result was the

At one time it was touted as one of the premier trail riding facilities in the country and reservations were a cherished item on most weekends from April thru November. The founder and developer of the Flying R, Terry Carroll, literally died on the trail four years ago and left things in a state of uncertainty for his widow and the ranch employees of this approximately 850 acres paradise. There was considerable debt against the ranch since Terry built the place up relatively quickly and built it right with the campgrounds, lodge, office and cabins. A prospective buyer, who was familiar

loss of 600 acres of leased riding land (land owned by the prospective buyer). The ultimate outcome, after three years of a downward spiral

Everything Horses and Livestock® | February 2021 | EHALmagazine.com 30

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