Hometown Living

ATTENTION HORSE LOVERS!!

Dream Park Opening Event, June 21

By Karen E. Viereck

Editor/Publisher

LOGAN TWP. – Come see what all the buzz is about when The Dream Park in Logan Township holds their official Opening Day Event on June 21 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Open to the public, the event will include booths and vendors featuring horse items and information about area amenities as well as exhibits and demonstrations from several different horse clubs and breeds.

If you are a horse owner, or someone who has always “dreamed’ of owning a horse, stop in and see the new horse show facilities including a large indoor arena with spectator stands. Come in and imagine yourself and your horse performing in front of judges under the lights in this cavernous building. Or visit the private barn where you can board your horse with access to three private rings as well as the show facilities when not in use.

Situated along the Delaware River and Raccoon Creek, the park will soon include nearly 200 acres of public riding trails and cross country courses.

There seems to be something there for everyone afflicted with “horse fever”.

The Dream Park is located on Route 130 South just below the Commodore Barry Bridge. For directions visit their website at www.gcianj.com.

Dreams Are Finally Coming True For
The Horse Enthusiasts In The Area

By Jean Redstone

LOGAN TWP. -- The Minix family in Gibbstown can hardly wait for what it sees as “one of the best things to hit this area,” as Christopher Minix put it. His daughter, Amanda, 16, just returned from Virginia where her vaulting team competed in a show.

Soon, Dad Minix hopes, “I can see us at shows at the Park.”

Vaulting? The Park?

Minix is just one of the area’s many families with an interest in and pursuit of equine disciplines. For them, the horse pursuit is vaulting, acrobatic maneuvers done bareback on top of a moving horse. It’s an Olympic equestrian sport, just like jumping or eventing.

And the Park? Well that story goes back 10 years and finally culminates or actually truly begins on June 21, in an event much anticipated by horse lovers throughout the tri-county area and beyond.

Just before the turn of this century, Gloucester County officials were worrying over the future of a large section of land in Logan Township along the Delaware River where dredged soil had already been dumped and much more was expected.

There has to be something better, county leaders thought. So they dreamed of gardens and of marinas and of horses. And when they dreamed, they dreamed big.

The results of that dream, appropriately named DREAM Park, opens June 21 with spanking new stables and arenas, both indoors and outside, with bleacher seating and RV-friendly parking lots, with show rings and schooling rings and an area for concession stands. Don’t be surprised if a horse or two prances by, as already the park is advertising for boarders to fill the first 44 stalls.

ENTRANCE to the main building and indoor riding arena. This building also houses offices and a multi-purpose annex room.

The 1,000-acre park’s name stands for Delaware River Equestrian, Agriculture, and Marine Park. Something for everyone.

Which is precisely the point. While the horse community sees the park as a much-needed facility in the south of the state to rival the Horse Park of New Jersey in the north, it will also be much more.

One of the prime movers behind the construction of the park, Freeholder Director Stephen M. Sweeney (who is also State Senator, D-3), said the land is “a large enough parcel that we thought it could be a horse park, marina, organic farm, public gardens.”

Designed primarily for horse shows and exhibitions, the site will also be a venue for any number of possible other uses, such as a therapeutic riding program already under discussion, a dog park, a livestock auction, and leased space for events by private and public organizations.

“I’m very excited,” said Christine Miller, who breeds sport horses and Warmbloods near Mullica Hill. “If they have shows there for my specialty, I’d definitely go because it’s close to home where my horses are and because you’d have a lot of people there, all in one place, interested in horses and maybe what I can offer.” For the same exposure Miller must now travel to the Devon Horse Show in Pennsylvania or to other further sites.

Miller’s not the only horse breeder/shower anticipating DREAM Park’s benefits. Mrs. Bob Gray of Winding Brook Farm in Mullica Hill is semi-retired from the horse business, “but I know everybody seems real excited about it because I’ve heard a lot of people talking from the first it was proposed. Everybody’s waiting for it to open,” she said. “I think it will open a lot of doors, for buying, selling, boarding.”

For Minix, the Gibbstown dad of a vaulting competitor, it isn’t buying, selling or boarding that he sees as the plus. Like a lot of people who exhibit and show their horses and skills, a full-service, top-rated showing venue nearby is of major benefit to the enjoyment of their hobby and sometimes business. “For us, it’ll be a definite plus. It will give local people a chance to show nearby and it will bring interest to this area from across the country,” he said.

“The facilities are outstanding and it will be a savings (in travel costs) for anybody who lives and shows on the East Coast.” Right now, he said, the national vaulting competitions are held in Denver, CO. “But I can see them coming to (Logan) in the future,” he added.

Beyond convenience and allure, Minix and others in the horse community hope the Park will encourage buyers of farmland and horse farms to come to this area, saving undeveloped land from housing tracts. “Within three miles from me there’s a developer planning homes with five-acre lots called The Equestrian Estates,” Minix said. “That’s the kind we need.”

ONE OF THE OUTSIDE RIDING RINGS and judge’s gazebo with view of the Commodore Barry Bridge in the background.

The DREAM Park, locally called “the horse park”, will be competing for a cut of the state’s billion dollar horse industry. The state Department of Agriculture estimated in its 2007 report that New Jersey horse businesses “generate an impact of $1.1 billion annually and nearly 13,000 jobs… feed, bedding, fencing, equipment, transportation, insurance, blacksmith and veterinary services directly contributes $698 million to the state’s economy annually.”

In fact, said County Administrator Chad Bruner, the park is expected to pay back its construction costs of $16 million (raised through bond issues) in under 20 years. “We pride ourselves in paying bonds off early,” Bruner said.

Sweeney underscored the economic thinking behind the original dream. “Every weekend during the swim meets at Gloucester County Institute of Technology – they have an Olympic-sized pool there – every hotel around is full, people dine in the restaurants in the area, they shop in the stores.

“I think the region will surely benefit from the tourists and the business inherent in the horse industry. There’s a lot of money involved in the industry. People don’t realize this.

But some people do realize it and are unsure of the benefit to the area. Ann Dorsett, owner of Dorsett Farms, an Arabian Horse facility in Woolwich Township, is one of the early proponents of DREAM Park. Yet she noted, “There are people concerned that this showground will pull spectators and exhibitors away from local shows.”

But Sweeney puts such worry into the county’s perspective. “We see this not (as a) competitor to other horse grounds, such as the 4H grounds, but as another benefit to the horse industry, and to educating the public. There are 28 riding clubs in Gloucester County,” Sweeney continued. “They will be able to rent out places for events and (there will be) public access to the riding trails.”

INDOOR RIDING ARENA where horse shows will take place.

Tammy Suydam, program assistant for 4H Youth Development at Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service of Gloucester County, agrees with Sweeney’s assessment. “The draw at DREAM Park will be the indoor arena and the larger areas (at DREAM Park). The 4H shows will still be held at the 4H Fairgrounds (in Mullica Hill) because that’s always available for our members.

“It’s true that a few breed shows rent our facility and if they leave, that could affect our revenue,” Suydam said. “But ultimately we are appealing to two different types of groups, those that need larger grounds and those that need a smaller area.

“And we hope that if there is a regional interest in equine pursuits that comes from the DREAM Park. It will also raise interest in our youth development and 4H. I think our equine industry is so large that both our grounds will benefit,” Suydam said.

Dorsett, like Suydam, also considers the venture in a positive light. “What an exciting, interesting thing, tapping into that huge industry around South Jersey, the pleasure horse industry,” she said.

“Racing is declining,” Dorsett said, “but there is growth in the pleasure horse area and (the DREAM Park) will bring in a different showing level than we have now with the 4H, which tends to be local and small breed shows.”

Dorsett sees new buyers, new people educated about horses, new opportunities for horse lovers who might not be horse owners. “I think the general increase in horse-related business will be good, an increased need for boarding stables nearby, for horse and equipment sales,” she said.

At the municipal level, Logan Township Mayor Frank Minor said his constituents have had little to say about the DREAM Park sited on the edges of his domain. “People here did not have much to say… (people) are kind of detached from that area of the township,” Minor said.

But he sees the park as a plus for Logan, so much so that, “We’ll use the DREAM Park and have incorporated it into our township marketing plan” to attract new industry.

“I think once it’s open and people see some of the positive aspects it presents, to the restaurants, shops and strip malls, see that people are taking advantage of the amenities in Logan, they’ll take more interest. We’re looking at this from a positive viewpoint – recreation, education, jobs.”

The “recreation” Minor spoke of is more than the spectator sport of watching horse shows and shopping the concessions. The park is on track to become a major destination for trail riding enthusiasts, much as Fair Hill in Maryland and Valley Forge Park in Pennsylvania are. For that pursuit, “This is an ideal location,” Sweeney said.

Indeed it is. Located on Route 130 South, along the Delaware River and Raccoon Creek in Logan, the site will eventually boast 200 acres of trails and cross country courses, many winding along the water’s green and scenic edge, in and out of the woodlands.

The trail system is still under construction, Phase II of the project. Phase I, the business end of the Park, saw the construction of arenas, buildings, seating, parking and stables. For more detailed descriptions, visit the Gloucester County Improvement Authority Web site at www.gcianj.com.

When DREAM Park is completed, “You won’t find another venue as beautiful to ride,” Sweeney said.

“And this was all borne out by the desire not to be dumped on. We thought our riverfront had a better use.”

return to top of page