Howard County could vie for the Maryland Horse Park in an effort to boost tourism and preserve land.
“I don?t want to be in the position that in a couple years from now, we look back and say we missed a golden opportunity,” said County Councilman Greg Fox, R-District 5.
Fox plans to file legislation to create a task force to examine the possibility of bringing the Maryland Horse Park to Howard. The group would examine costs to the county and locations for the park.
A horse farm would bring tourism dollars into the county and preserve agricultural land, Fox said.
Plans for a state park have been in the works for eight years as a way to centralize and promote the state?s equine industry, said Rob Burk, executive director of the Maryland Horse Industry Board.
In 2005, the board and the Maryland Stadium Authority received six bids from counties and selected a site in Anne Arundel County for a feasibility study, he said.
However, the group pulled out of its plans to build a $114 million, 875-acre park in Gambrills amid fading county support. The site would have included a visitors center, a museum, an indoor show ring seating 2,500 and stables for 840 horses.
The project is now “on hold,” Burk said.
“As it stands it?s wide open,” he said, adding the board could make a decision in the next year.
The board will look at the original bids, as well as all “potential options on the table,” he said. Harford and Wicomico counties have expressed renewed interest in the park.
Howard?s central location and accessibility from Baltimore and Washington make the county ideal for a park, said Michael Erskine, an equine veterinarian in Howard.
