When the U.S. Army closed the gates at Fort Ord 10 years ago, more than 25,000 acres of prime Central California coast property became fallow. But among a small group of horse enthusiasts a new idea emerged: a horse park, centrally located, to serve the thriving horse community of the West Coast.

The seed began to grow with San Francisco’s bid for the Olympic Games, but even when the city by the bay lost out to New York City as the U.S. bid for the 2012 Olympics, the quest for a new horse park in Monterey County stayed alive.

The Horse Park of Monterey Bay is a California non-profit, public-benefit corporation formed in 2001 to develop international-caliber facilities for competition, training and educational use on approximately 340 acres of land at the former Army base, located between the cities of Monterey and Salinas on the Pacific Coast Highway. Currently, progress depends on negotiation with the County of Monterey for a long-term lease with an option to buy. But, through grants from foundations, fund-raising and other sources, the park’s proponents hope to raise enough money to purchase the land.

“The size of the property was determined with a three-day event in mind,” said Linda Allen, the international show jumping course designer who’s the secretary of the Board of Directors.

“But even if we don’t need space for roads and tracks, consider that the Kentucky Horse Park has 1,300 acres, and they use most of it. It makes no sense to reduce our land request, because this project will keep growing. While the lease seems the best way to go in the short term, the board is pleased that the option to purchase is there,” she added.

Surrounded by thousands of acres of land administered by the Bureau of Land Manage-ment, the sandy terrain is gently rolling oak woodland and chaparral with views of the Pacific Ocean. The climate is temperate almost all year long, with fog and sea breezes keeping it cool in the summer.

The area has a long tradition of farming and ranching and is popular for its golf, wine country and the San Francisco Bay’s unique aquatic life. Lying between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the rocky, cypress-strewn coast, it’s a distinctive and highly attractive landscape.

A Permanent Legacy

Anne Cribbs, who swam in the 1960 Rome Olympics, is now president and chief executive officer of the Olympic Bid for the San Fran-cisco Bay Area. Her goal in this role has been to create the best conditions that she could for all of the athletes and for all of the sports involved in the Olympic Games, and she’s a dedicated force driving the development of the horse park in Monterey.

“We went to Golden Gate Park in the middle of San Francisco and decided that wouldn’t work as an equestrian venue,” said Cribbs. Even after San Francisco lost the bid to New York, she said, “I became very committed to the equestrian center because the land is so extraordinary. As I’ve done more research about equestrian centers in this area, I’ve found that many of them are in danger. Once this is built, it’ll be a permanent legacy to the bid and important to the equestrian community.”

When completed, the horse park will be able to host competitions from the local to FEI level and accommodate all seven Federation Equestre Internationale disciplines (dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, reining, show jumping and vaulting), as well as cutting, polo and more. The plan includes cross-country and steeplechase courses for eventing. And it borders a 7,800-acre Bureau of Land Management area with trails for horses, hikers and cyclists.

The SPCA of Monterey County will relocate its equine rescue/adoption facility to the park, and officials from California State University-Monterey Bay, also located within the former Fort Ord, plan to base their equestrian team there. Facilities will also be in-cluded for riders with disabilities.

While the Olympic Bid wasn’t successful this time, it lit the spark that set the California horse community on fire.

“The reason people love the Olympics so much is it reflects the way we want the world to be,” said Cribbs. “For one two-week period, we reflect on the Greek ideals that started it all. Because of the Olympic bid, this has captured the imagination of horse people across the country. We’re fortunate to have the interest of former Olympians. We’ll set the standard.”

Cribbs added, “I took someone there who’s been all over the world, and she said this place has the potential to be the best. We’re working now with the county on the transfer of the land. Once that happens, we can move into phase 1. It’s incredible; Califor-nians have to go pretty far to find this much open space, and it’s not always good land, but this is beautiful scrub country.”

Allen described the land as “very unique; there’s nothing like it in the Western United States. Pebble Beach [just to the south] is comparable, but its focus is on golf. We’re hanging in there like bulldogs to get this done; another offer like this won’t come along. If you go inland the climate is too hot. Even Temecula [home of Galway Downs CCI and horse trials, near San Diego] doesn’t compare.”

The Pebble Beach Equestrian Center has long been home to horse shows, dressage shows, horse trials and polo tournaments. But if plans to move the stables to another location within Pebble Beach ever materialize, there will only be room there for boarding and training.

“Pebble Beach has done a great job of getting the community behind them, and their shows are very popular,” said Allen. “But if they’re relocated, they won’t handle shows nearly like what they can now. They’re still fighting about it, but the Pebble Beach Corporation wants a golf course because it will make more money.”

The nearest similar venue is more than 90 minutes north in Woodside, a facility that’s just begun to host horse trials and hunter/jumper shows again after dealing with community complaints. But it now has to work within restrictions on how many people can participate in any competition, a requirement that limits the income potential and viability of any show grounds. Other large competition venues are several hours’ drive south in the vicinity of Los Angeles.

Jennifer Roth, a dressage trainer and S-rated judge, breeds Lipizzaner horses in Carmel Valley, which is experiencing development and population growth that diminishes room for equine activity. “It’s really going to help all the horse people here because everything is being pushed out of the valley,” said Roth about the effect of the Horse Park at Monterey Bay.

“It depends what kind of show and what kind of facility you are talking about, but the closest show facility north is Rancho Murieta, three to four hours drive, and to the south is the Los Angeles Equestrian Center–that’s six hours away. We have no indoor arena in Monterey County–although the weather is so good we don’t often need one. The really positive aspect about this is that, in the summer, everywhere else we have to show is really hot. This will be cool and nice.”

Community Effect

Of course, the horse park promises to bring a significant amount of income to the area throughout the year, just like the Kentucky and Colorado horse parks. Owners, trainers, riders and spectators buy gas, food and other groceries and souvenirs, and they usually need hotel rooms.

“The county Board of Supervisors used to think in terms of the old Fort Ord Equestrian Center–a tiny little place where local folks keep their horses and cared for them themselves,” said Allen. She points out that they now realize the occupancy tax alone on hotel rooms for competitors and spectators will bring in a significant amount of revenue for the county.

“Even with conservative estimates, the financial impact on the county from the Monterey Horse Park will be huge,” she said. “Horse show facilities don’t necessarily make much money for themselves, but they generate a lot for the community.”

The park’s 10-member Advisory Council is an esteemed group of professional equestrians, including eventers Derek di Grazia, Loris Henry, James Wofford, Charles Lloyd III, and Karen and David O’Connor, dressage legend Hilda Gurney, and Jody Cutler, president of the American Driving Society.

Concerning the park’s effect on eventing, Wofford said, “It certainly will have a major impact on eventing because it’s a facility that you can count on. The West Coast badly needs that, because open space there is at such a premium.”

Wofford thinks that this horse park will be a success because of its capacity to host other, non-equestrian functions.

“Any of these equestrian facilities that are well-run and have space are jam-packed,” he said. “The Virginia Horse Center is booked every weekend, even Christmas. It’s not just horse shows; it’s dog shows, flea markets and so on. People need green space, and I know that this concept works.”

The success of the Horse Park at Monterey Bay depends, according to Wofford, on the people running it.

“It’s up to them to determine how big this gets,” he said. “I think it’s a good concept.”

California Has The Numbers

According to the national study of the economic impact horses make on the U.S. economy released last month by the American Horse Council, California has the country’s second largest equine population–approximately 698,000 horses. Only Texas–with 978,000 horses–has more.

But those California horses have a larger effect on the state’s gross domestic product than the Texas horses, indicating that they travel and compete more. California’s horses are responsible for a $6.9 billion contribution annually, the largest in the country.

By comparison, Kentucky, home to the Kentucky Horse Park, stands fifth in horse population (320,000), but those horses contribute $3.5 billion per year to the economy.

Colorado, which has had a much smaller horse park in Parker for only two years, ranks 10th in horse population (255,000) but still receives a very healthy $1.5 billion per year in revenue from them.