Ask The Right Questions When Planning A Horse Property

Our columnist confers with two friends and develops “hints for horsekeepers” for those who are acquiring or building an equestrian property.

Anyone who has ever flown across the United States knows that there are endless miles of sparsely inhabited land within our borders. Why, then, do we seem to be dealing with so many of the pressures of rampant development, and why are we running out of land on which to ride? Clogged highways, suburban sprawl and the transformation of farmland into shopping centers all seem to be the new reality for the 21st century rider.

The simple answer to these questions is that most people need to live in places where they can find jobs, and most jobs are available in places where people live. Yes, riders could pack up en masse and move to rural Kansas or Wyoming, and theoretically ride to the far horizons, but realistically, that isn’t going to happen.

As real estate prices rise, an inevitable result is that horse farms are getting smaller. The 100-acre farm of 1969 is perhaps the 5- to 10-acre farm of 2009 in some areas, the 15- to 25-acre farm in more rural areas. This means that the horse farm owner of today needs to be a highly analytical land planner, almost an equine landscape architect, oriented toward maximum efficiency and utilization of available space.

In many semi-rural areas where horse farms still exist, there appear to be two somewhat contradictory concepts about the meaning of the phrase “horse farm.” For the real horse lover, the farm is primarily laid out for horses. For others, the house is the centerpiece of the property, and the farm layout for horses is subordinate to the placement of the residence. At some of these latter properties, a salient feature of the prominently displayed jumping arenas is the absence of any hoof prints, leading to and away from the jumps! But that’s another story.

But, let’s assume that owning, keeping and riding horses is the high priority. How does this theoretical farm “work?” Is it functional or dysfunctional?

Two Experts

To get more ideas for this article, I talked with two of my Southern Pines (N.C.) neighbors who run first-class eventing programs on two lovely adjacent properties: Bobby Costello, who runs Leila Clay’s 11-acre Tanglewood Farm, and Mark Weissbecker, who designed, built and manages the 25-acre Winter Book Farm for Edward Linde.

The following “hints for horsekeepers” are a compendium of our various ideas, the things we’ve learned that work, and the pitfalls to avoid.

A farm is first of all a piece of land. It has terrain, vegetation, and kinds of soil, perhaps a pond or wetlands. It lies adjacent to other land. It will have prevailing winds, and it will have exposure to the traveling sun.

Upon and underneath that land will be placed roads, fencing, power lines, water lines, paddocks or pastures, riding surfaces (grass or all-weather), one or more barns, sheds, and one or more residences. So we need a plan.

Bobby Costello: “Place the buildings toward the perimeter so you keep the middle open for riding.”
Mark Weissbecker: “Place the buildings toward the perimeter so you keep the middle open for riding.”