Portsmouth, OH Outdoor Activities

Designed by famed Australian golfer Graham Marsh, Old Silo Golf Course engulfs 209 acres of hilly terrain with a challenging 7,011-yard layout. Bent-grass tees, fairways, and greens form manicured chutes through bluegrass rough, a difficult outlier that lures errant shots with its long blades and hypnotic plucking of ancient fiddles.

Somerset Creek comes into play on five holes, looming on the edges of 7 and 17 and presenting a forced carry on holes 6, 15, and 16. The par 72 course concludes with a 574-yard par 5 in which players must navigate a three-sectioned fairway and 8 of the course's 84 white-sand bunkers.

Rather than rummaging in their golf bag for forgotten candy bars or stowaway potatoes, players can quell appetites at Old Silo's restaurant, which serves a menu of pulled-pork sandwiches, cheeseburgers, and other casual grill fare. On weekends, grillmasters barbecue steaks, beef brisket, and ribs on the outdoor balcony that overlooks the golf course.

Course at a Glance:

• Designed by Graham Marsh
• 18-hole, par 72 course
• Length of 7,011 yards from the farthest tees
• Course rating of 74.6 from the farthest tees
• Slope rating of 139 from the farthest tees
• Four tee options
• Scorecard

The staff at Equestrian Ridge Farm has been tending to steeds and riders on its 200-acre estate for more than 10 years. During riding lessons in a medley of styles—including dressage, single driving, and trail riding—trainers educate equestrians of all levels at the facility’s two large, indoor arenas. The barn houses between 15–20 horses at any given time, a handful of which are reserved for lessons or reenactments of chase scenes from The Lone Ranger. Equestrian Ridge also offers under-saddle training for horses by an experienced instructor who tailors each session to the steed’s temperament and riding style.

Train hobbyist Don Oeters founded EnterTRAINment Junction in 2008 to showcase railroading in an educational and amusing way. Two years later, his 80,000-square-foot facility was voted Ohio’s Best Family Entertainment Center of 2010.

At the centerpiece, a 25,000-square-foot indoor model train display dazzles visitors with 90 G-scale trains and 2 miles of track winding through handcrafted landscapes, including an 11-foot waterfall, thousands of trees, and scenes documenting railroad's early, middle, and modern periods. Each train car is the size of a loaf of bread, making it easier for groups to see it or break it into communal pieces, and Oeters and his staff continually tweak the locomotive's surroundings by adding seasonal touches and installing minor or major updates. Historical train artifacts, educational videos, and interactive exhibits await amblers in the railroad museum, and the Imagination Junction kids' area entertains youngsters with train-themed play structures, hand-cranked and electronic locomotive rides, and a section dedicated to Thomas the Tank Engine, the first train to successfully learn sign language.

Lurking in the darkness of moisture-saturated topsoil, the mud ninja challenges only the toughest competitors to attempt his 5K obstacle-laden course. Serving the dual purpose of allowing entrants to live out their reality-show fantasies while helping to raise money for Autism Speaks, the Mud Ninja race requires participants to crawl through mud pits covered with barbed wire and scale steep walls before leaping onto multiple mounds that punish imbalanced racers with a splash. Throughout the 5K course, contestants splat into mud pits in front of hundreds of spectators. The Little Mud Ninja race scales the course for younger racers, and an after-party engages all with music and a plethora of food vendors.

Colonial Pines Golf Club’s 18-hole course blankets 127 acres of tranquil Ohio Valley farmland for 5,966 yards of rolling hills and imposing hardwoods. Golfers traverse the par 70 layout on the backs of motorized carts or caddies hoping to improve their piggyback-ride form, steering balls away from a menagerie of hazards, including mounds topped with swaying heathers, woodsy thickets, and six lakes spanning 11 acres. The first tee shot aptly foreshadows a round in which avoiding water hazards and ingratiating oneself to ball-stealing fish will be critical, as drives must cross a pond that runs from the tee box to the beginning of the fairway.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 70 course
• Length of 5,966 yards from the farthest tees
• Course rating of 68.3 from the farthest tees
• Slope rating of 117 from the farthest tees
• Three tee options
• Link to scorecard

The Phoenix Equestrian Centre's owner and lifelong horse expert Linda Gonzalez draws on her professional racehorse-training experience while teaching riding lessons and caring for her fleet of steeds. Having trained racehorses that have breached the upper echelons of the nation's Experimental Handicap top 200 and gone on to race before the queen of England, Linda has an expert eye for tending to the needs and birthday wishes of each horse. Set on 19 acres, her horse boarding and training facility features 60'x60' indoor and 100'x200' outdoor riding arenas, where ponies are free to strut and students take their first tentative gallops atop well-trained mounts. Aside from private lessons and day camps, Linda also breaks and trains unruly horses, leases trustworthy steeds, and hosts a variety of informational seminars about the future possibilities of a centaur composite race.