Save a horse, ride a taxpayer…

I generally hate analogies because there are so many minor differences that can make them faulty, but when I think about the horse park idea that is being kicked around in the County Council I think of the Concorde. Back in the 1960’s, the British and French governments heavily subsidized the development of the Concorde jet plane, which was extremely expensive to bring to production. Once produced, British Airways made lots of money using the plane to transport wealthy travelers across continents very quickly. In short, the government took a huge loss to financially benefit a private company that provided services to very rich people.

Howard County’s version of the Concorde may very well be the horse park. The County is being asked to subsidize (or maybe even foot the entire bill) to build a horse park that will most likely be used by people wealthy enough to afford horses, which are not cheap animals to own. My opinion of the project, as you may have guessed, is that if the project could be done by private investors, it would be. Only the government would be stupid enough to invest in such a project.

Greg Fox, a western county Republican, and Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, are co-sponsoring a resolution that would create a citizens committee to study the idea of a horse park and decide whether to recommend that the county try for the state project.

Fox said he has no specific location in mind for the center, which might need between 500 and 1,000 acres and could cost up to $114.2 million, but he mentioned the University of Maryland Central Farm, about 900 acres located on Folly Quarter Road, as a possibility. Another site might be found somewhere along Interstate 70, he said.

Fox said he is not yet arguing that Howard County should join the competition for the project.