Time for a New Rant!

I wanted to share a recent article in our local paper. Apparently horse ownership and what we do with those horses is not known. And let’s not let an opportunity to bash the Government for meddling and spending our money go unanswered.

Occasionally on the trail we’ve been asked if our horses are race horses. That is the only thing people associate horses with today, thanks to ESPN and NBC Sports. Our horses are related to Quarter Horse race horses, but ours are trail and camping horses.

In our state we have over 2,000 horse trail miles. How could this be possible? Decades of lobbying on behalf of the horse industry to preserve established trails during and after suburban development, volunteers to make sure the trails are in good condition and sharing the trails with hikers/bikers.

A Reverse Barometer
By John J. Walters
JULY 14, 2011
What is it about working in the government that makes politicians that seem so sensible in private conversation so prone to terrible decision-making? Are they actually this bad with their own finances, or do their seemingly-compulsive bad investments happen only with other people’s money? It seems like every time I turn around, I am reading another article about a bad investment the government has made, or is at least considering.
Yesterday’s news brought two great examples of how the government is a perfect “reverse business barometer” (that is to say, whatever they want to do, as a good investor you should do the opposite). Since they are both part of the subscription content on The Daily Record, I will summarize them for you.
The Maryland Horse Industry Board (part of the Department of Agriculture) has decided to test the waters on a “state horse park.”
Quick summary: We will soon be committing almost $80,000 to studying the viability of a state horse park in Maryland -- an idea that we are borrowing from the state of Kentucky. We don’t know how we can afford to pay for the project yet, but we are already anticipating that it will bring over $9 million dollars into the state each year as tax revenue.
Why this is a terrible idea: Three reasons.
1) The thoroughbred racing industry is already dying in this state. We have spent millions upon millions over the past several years trying to prop it up, and to no avail. I can tell you whether or not this is a good idea, and I’ll do it for a lot less than $80,000…
2) The fact that we have no idea how it would be paid for is a good sign that we shouldn’t be considering such a project. This is like car shopping when you know that you have no down payment and no available credit. Pointless, and potentially very bad (if you can’t control your spending -- like our government).
3) Starting a big project like this one simply because you saw it somewhere else is not always a good idea. If our politicians went to Disneyworld, would they decide we need one here, and spend taxpayer dollars to build it? Even if people show up to our MD horse events, we may have just spent lots of money to shuffle them from there to here. We wouldn’t be creating any extra wealth at all.
Maryland officials are working on restructuring the debt for the Hippodrome Theatre so that they can continue operations.
Quick summary: The Hippodrome Theatre owes $1.8 million in debt service each year. The deal that the state struck was that the theater would contribute $800,000 annually from ticket revenues and then the remaining $1 million would be kicked in from the General Fund (your tax dollars, yes). But ticket revenue has fallen all the way to under $400,000 last year, leaving more slack for taxpayers to pick up.
Why this is a terrible idea: The government needs to admit that it is a horrible businessman. This, like Rocky Gap, is another failed venture that should have been taken over by the private sector a long time ago. Especially given the fact that we are facing perpetual deficits, it seems like it would make a lot more sense to sell off these underperforming assets and stop throwing money at them. But we never really do that, do we? Instead, we “restructure” -- spreading the pain out for longer and longer each time, but never really solving the problem.
I wish it wasn’t so easy to look at what the government does every day and say, “That’s ridiculous.” But it is.
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I appreciate John's comments and it shows me that the Maryland horse industry & myself specifically have much work to do to educate and inform our fellow citizens as we embark on plans to grow our industry and in this specific case, to explain plans by The Md. Horse Industry Board to revisit the concept of building a Md. Horse Park.
First, even though the Md. Horse Industry Board is a program within the Md. Dept. of Agriculture, and we are proud of that fact, we receive absolutely NO government funding. Every penny we receive in funding comes from the horse industry itself, mostly through the Feed Fund Assessment program. Every time a Maryland horse owner buys a bag of horse feed we receive 15 cents. That is our primary funding source, as well as fees that we receive from licensing approximately 600 Md. boarding, lesson and riding stables.
So we are ENTIRELY Industry funded and as Executive Director, I am answerable to an 11-person board comprised entirely of horse industry professionals from various disciplines such as horse shows and events; trail riding; horse rescues, etc. We have one representative from the Thoroughbred racing segment of the industry on our board.
Every five years MHIB sponsors a Md. Horse Summit. At the last Summit, held in August, 2009 and attended by over 300 industry representatives and stakeholders, attendees at a town hall meeting and through post-Summit surveys said that the No. 1 project that could move the industry forward was building a Md. Horse Park.
This idea had absolutely nothing to do with state government, but came from industry stakeholders themselves.
That is exactly why our Horse Industry Board is taking up the idea of building a Md. Horse Park. To NOT do so would be derelict in our duty to the industry that we represent and from which we receive our funding.
The original idea for a Md. Horse Park was generated as far back as 1999, a year after the Md. Horse Industry Board was formed and gained traction at the first Md. Horse Forum in 2004. At that time the Maryland Stadium Authority joined in the process and conducted an extensive Feasibility Study that showed the viability of such a facility. A site at the Naval Academy Dairy Farm in Gambrills was selected, but because of political considerations, the plan at that site was dropped.
Now we are re-visiting the Horse Park concept because that is what our industry stakeholders and constituents have asked us do.
We realize economic conditions have changed drastically since 2006. We realize that if we have any hope whatsoever to obtain any type of government funding, if there is any available at all, and for that matter, any private funding, that as an industry we have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the viability of building such a Horse Park.
That is why we are proceeding very cautiously and conservatively, and to this point, have only approved Phase I of a study to determine if building such a facility is still viable under current conditions. The initial $8,000 of that cost is being borne entirely by the Md. Horse Industry Board from our industry-derived funds. Not one penny from government funds is being used. Depending on the outcome of that study, we would then move to Phase II.
We will need additional funding of $70,000 to conduct that study and again, the burden is on us to prove that this is an economically viable project.
One comment here about the Md. Horse Industry.
Horses are an extremely viable economic engine in Maryland involved in a lot more than horse racing, although that gets most of the media attention. Racing only accounts for about 40 percent of the overall horse industry picture. The other 60 percent is recreational horse riding and horse sports and that segment of the industry is thriving and extends to every county in the state, including Baltimore City.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service conducted a very thorough 18-month Md. Horse Census in 2010. The study found there are 79,100 horses in Maryland; 16,000 places where horses are kept; that 587,000 acres of Maryland land is owned and/or controlled by Md. horse people and their families, green space that serves as superb filtering mechanisms for the Bay; that total equine related assets in the state amount to $5.6 billion; and that Marylanders' total annual operating and capital expenditures for their horse operations amount annually to $512 million. Other studies and surveys show that there are 65,000 Marylanders involved in the horse industry and that 28,000 full and part time jobs are attributable to the equine industry.
The majority of these assets and expenditures are NOT racetrack dependent.
Horses are used for work (such as mounted police units, carriage companies, extensively for farming in southern Maryland by the Amish); in manufacturing (such as equine pharmaceutical company Nutramax, located in White Marsh); entertainment (such as Medieval Times); tourism (the Assateague ponies); agriculture (Maryland horse people spend over $80M a year on horse feed, hay & straw, much of it locally produced); education (there are 22 Pony Clubs and over 1,500 youth involved in 4-H work; the U.S. Naval Academy formed its own 52-member horseback riding and intercollegiate show team this year); therapy with over 50 therapeutic riding organizations in the state helping citizens with all types of disabilities from autism to anorexia, abused women, wounded vets, etc.
There are over 2,000 miles of horse trails, a dozen organized foxhunting clubs preserving thousands of acres of open space; world-class riding facilities and events; and accomplished individuals like Tiffany McClure, the World Champion barrel racer from Upper Marlboro and Olympic Grand Prix Jumping hopeful Marilyn Little from Frederick.

I could go on and on.

Time will tell as we thoroughly discuss this issue whether or not there is solid ground to build the Horse Park facility. This is not a racetrack. This would be a facility devoted to the history, recreation, therapeutic and holistic value, the arts and enjoyment and magic of horses.

Perhaps we already have enough excellent horse facilities in the state to serve the needs of our horse-loving community. But perhaps we do need a central location for national and international competitions and horse entertainment venues; and for visitors and tourists and our citizens to enrich their lives through the experience of being associated with horses and to grow our industry.
The Maryland Department of Planning projects 25 percent growth in population in Maryland by 2030. That’s 25 percent more Marylanders looking for leisure activities for themselves and their families and for ways to spend their disposable income.
We would love for them to discover the joy of horses.
Ross Peddicord, Exec. Dir., Md. Horse Industry Board
posted by : Ross Peddicord on July 20, 2011 at 03:39 PM