Pumpkin, Nacho, Trusty. Those are the names of some of the horses that taught generations of horse-crazy kids to ride at the Potomac Horse Center over the years in Montgomery County, Maryland.
On April 30, Nancy Novograd, president of the PHC, wrote a letter to the “Potomac Horse Center Community” explaining that after operating for decades, the center would be closing its doors for good on July 22.
Novograd explained that since 2017, the center tried to renegotiate its lease with the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission. Novograd wrote in the April 30 letter, “the tipping point in the negotiations was M-NCPPC’s insistence that the renewal of the lease was contingent on PHC raising three to five million dollars to improve M-NCPPC’s infrastructure with no assurances that PHC would be permitted to remain on the property.”
Novograd added: “PHC simply cannot ask our clients to pay for and invest in a rapidly deteriorating infrastructure that PHC does not own.”
Gary Burnett, the deputy director for operations at Montgomery Parks, part of the dual-county M-NCPPC, told WTOP that the terms of the lease agreement had always stipulated that PHC was to cover the cost of infrastructure upkeep, and that safety concerns arose over the state of the facility.
Burnett said there had been an inspection of the conditions at the center: “We told them that — I guess it was in December — that the main barn was, basically, structurally unsound.”
“They were still responsible to make repairs if they wanted to continue — and we did give them a path forward to continue if they wanted to lease,” Burnett added, but he said it was the PHC’s decision not to continue.
Novograd explained in her April 30 letter that, “The terms of our 1993 lease are unsustainable under current economic conditions.” And that the income from the facility’s lesson program “also has to go to veterinary care, farrier services, hay and grain for horses,” along with things like payroll, insurance, farm equipment and more.
Montgomery County Council member Marilyn Balcombe told WTOP that the announcement that the center will be closing is “unfortunate.” But, she said, “Both parties have been working very hard, but it didn’t come as a surprise.”
There have been comments on social media that suggested there is some plan to develop the property. Both Burnett and Balcombe say that’s not true.
Balcombe told WTOP, “The parks department is not in the business of developing land.”
“We don’t sell property to developers and that sort of thing. We just aren’t allowed to do that, so that won’t happen,” Burnett said.
In her letter, Novograd wrote, “PHC is planning for lessons to continue uninterrupted through June 16th.”
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