Our Mission

The Orange County Horse and Farm Center is requesting your support for our worthwhile project.

The project we are looking to undertake is the creation of a multi-faceted state of the art recreational and equestrian facility.  It is our hope to format the facility after successful parks that currently exist throughout the United States. These parks have a balance of recreation, education, and conservation along with many environmental aspects.  Examples of these fine facilities can be found in the New Jersey Horse Park, Kentucky Horse Park and the Virginia Horse Park.

 The New Jersey Park is the park we are trying to emulate.  It is important to be clear that this park was built over a twenty (20) year period.  We hope to be able to progress in phases in order to be able to raise funds and have the park grow in an organized manner to create show grounds, horse trails, multi-use trails, a suggested home to the 4-H and a suggested home to the Cornell Co-operative Extension.

One thing that all of the show grounds have in common is that they are all good for the community, bringing public and private resources together.  These grounds bring in a huge amount of tourist revenue to the area in which they are located.  An approximate impact on a six-week show period for the community is $30,000,000 - Think of it $30,000,000!  Please check out Horse Shows in The Sun, located in Saugerties, NY.  The impact on our community will be a positive one, which will bring in tourist dollars, and attracting horse owners’ and peripheral services to the area.  All of which will help maintain Open Space through active farming.  It is important to remember that horses do not go to school, and put more dollars back into the community. Thereby being an asset and credit to us all in Orange County, NY.

We ask that you review the above websites, explore the parks and possibilities in order to understand the project we are proposing.

Focus on the aspect that it promotes a strong sense of family and helps maintain an upscale and healthy environment for our children.

The creation of a park such as this would help sustain the foundation that truly was Orange County, New York of earlier days.

 Simple facts are: 

 We have been pursuing a multi use trail system in the Orange County Parks for ten years.

During this time the equestrian community has been unsuccessful in obtaining trails in the Orange County, NY Parks.

In August of 2002 we hired a professional trails designer who designed trails in the Warwick and Winding hills parks.  Sept of 2003 we brought in another trail designer Mike Riter, to design a trail through sensitive areas of the Thomas Bull Park to create a multi-use trail system that would incorporate horses, hiking, and biking along the Wallkill River corridor.

The original Master Plan from 1969 and the 2000 Master Plan both propose to allow trails in the parks and has shown a desire to join forces with the community to help to maintain trails and facilities. We have taken every effort to make this a reality.

We take pride in our request and are asking for the following in order to achieve this goal:

(1)   Master plan of Orange County Horse & Farm Center, before any construction or improvements are made to the property. (Blackburne farm or adjacent acreage). Plan to be done by a professional horse show grounds designer.

(2)   Acquisition & designation of the 67-acre Blackburn farm & adjacent acreage (approximately 80 acres) giving the project a total of 147 acres. 

(3)   147 acres is the same size acreage, which has allowed the New Jersey Horse Park to evolve into the premiere public horse show grounds of the State of New Jersey.

We are looking forward to creating a long-term working relationship with Orange County by developing a confident public-spirited Friends Group for this special facility.