Horse farms gallop toward growth

Marti Maguire, Staff Writer

When Don Williford carved out five acres of his Johnston County farmland for horses, he didn't think he was starting a trend.

An insurance adjuster, Williford liked looking out at grazing horses and the students who came from Clayton and Smithfield to take riding lessons.

"When I started boarding horses, they were the only horses out here," said Williford, whose horse farm opened in 1991.

Now a half-dozen horse farms have sprouted nearby in the Cleveland community, just one sign that horses are increasingly sharing space with suburban backyards in fast-growing counties such as Johnston. Horse industry boosters say these growth areas are hot spots in a statewide horse boom that they hope to expand.

"What you see in Johnston County is what you see across the state," said Mike Yoder, an N.C. State University horse specialist. "We see the number of farms increasing, horse shows getting larger, more interest in all aspects of breeding and showing."

Horses might seem like a natural part of pastoral landscapes that are being replaced by subdivisions in Johnston, Wake, Chatham and Franklin counties. But most of the horses are newcomers, too, brought by suburbanites with cheap land and visions of country life, as well as farmers meeting a demand for lessons and rides.

"People have had higher levels of discretionary income the last 10 years, and horses are one of the ways they've been able to enjoy that income," Yoder said. "Wake, Mecklenburg and Forsyth have always had the greatest horse populations in the state. As those areas become more developed, those farms are moving out to supporting counties."

The number of horses in North Carolina rose from 61,000 in 1955 to 225,000, according to recent estimates. Last week, the General Assembly agreed to have a study done on the number of horses in the state and their economic impact.

Horse owners buy land, trucks to haul the animals, trailers that can top $100,000 apiece, tons of hay, miles of fencing and so on. All that adds up to profits and tax revenue that could help rural counties starving for business.

"There's a lot of talk of how we can take advantage," said Billy Guillet, director of the Agriculture Advancement Consortium, a state group created by the General Assembly to seek alternatives for struggling North Carolina farmers.

There are plenty of signs that the horse industry is heating up. Feed sales are up, and the state's three major horse arenas are often booked. Other states, such as Maryland, have found that the horse industry generates more than $1 billion a year.

In developing areas, a growing number of stables and pastures are tucked between homes and rows of tobacco and corn. Newcomers from urban areas, thrilled to have a few acres, might buy a horse. Farmers might turn to horses as an alternative to crops. They're finding a ready market.

"You need the housing developments where kids can come instead of taking tennis lessons or swimming or soccer," said Glenn Petty, a former horse specialist with the state Department of Agriculture, who trains show horses on his Rolesville farm.

Successful horse farms also can help stem the tide of development. Cookie Pope, chairwoman of the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, touts the horse industry as a way to preserve her county's rural charm while helping residents prosper.

"Much of the rural character is fading as far as row crops are concerned," Pope said. "But I see a lot of pastures, and I see a lot of the stores popping up. It's a great enterprise."

Problems rear up
Williford opened what is now Cleveland Riding School about the time he sold off 170 acres of land that is now the Broadmoor subdivision next door. "Now an oasis between housing developments is what it amounts to," he said of his riding school, which he has since sold.

Gail Haas had given riding lessons in Cary and Garner before buying Williford's place. Haas said operating a riding school near homes presents challenges -- she abandoned one jumping area because a barking dog in an adjacent yard startled the horses.

Needing more space, she recently bought another farm on 25 acres farther east in Johnston County.
Katie Stover, 15, who started riding at Williford's school when she was 4, remembers going along trails in the woods behind the farm that have since been cleared for more homes.

"There's hardly any place to go trail-riding anymore," she said.

There is another downside to the horse boom: Johnston County animal control recently bought its first horse trailer to cart away mistreated animals. Shelter director Ernie Wilkinson said his staff is seeing more cases of owners neglecting horses or not feeding them enough.

"People come out here and have that land, so they put a horse out there," Wilkinson said. "But they don't know how to care for them."

Those just entering the business might underestimate a horse's hearty appetite for hay.
"In most of agriculture, the farmers learned up from their parents," Petty said. "In the horse industry, you have people get horses for their kids and know nothing of how to keep a horse."

But Petty and other horse enthusiasts hope an economic impact survey will help them educate horse owners and support the industry in other ways, such as incentives for breeders and shows and space preserved for trails.

The result, they hope, will be more grazing horses breaking up rows of homes. "We'd like to have more as green space than just growing houses," he said.