Horse Farm

A FULLTIME FARMER for most of his life, Howie Feaga made the switch from dairy farming to horse farming four years ago. Now he has a list of people waiting to board their horses in one of his 24 stalls should an opening arise. Feaga has a few horses of his own, but most of the horses at his Merry Acres farm in Glenelg are owned by people who live in Columbia, Silver Spring, Eldersburg and Anne Arundel County. "They're mostly people who do a little showing and trail riding," he said. "We have a nice, big, sand-based ring, and we also have access to trails."

GOT A HORSE in your life? With at least 87,000 beating, equine hearts in the state, it's quite possible that you do. Maybe your child takes riding lessons after school or at camp. Maybe you go to the racetrack once in awhile, or bet on races from home. Maybe you're a trainer, a breeder, a show rider, a trail rider or a fox chaser. Maybe you just live near a horse farm or drive by one occasionally, enjoying the bucolic view. In what may seem startling news, a recent census revealed that the Maryland horse industry is huge and growing.

Robert Hammond, 76, raised horses on farm in Towson Robert J. Hammond, a retired road construction worker who with his wife managed a horse farm in Towson, died Wednesday of emphysema at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. He was 76. The longtime Hillendale resident was born in Baltimore, and grew up in the Keedysville area outside Hagerstown. As a youth he went to work on his grandfather's dairy farm in Keedysville and eventually helped run it. During World War II he served in the Army as an infantryman from 1945 to 1947, and was stationed in Italy, Germany and Austria.

Anne Arundel County could be forced to pay the former owner of a Broadneck peninsula horse farm double the $500,000 she got for it in 1998 if a bill before state legislators becomes law. When Betsy Gleaves sold the 12-acre farm to the county, she thought she was setting up a lasting memorial to her late husband, Andy Smith, who was an avid horseman and riding instructor. She knew area residents didn't want the bucolic property covered with townhouses and extracted from the county what she thought was a guarantee that it would remain an equestrian center.

A purse snatching in Parkton ended yesterday in a high-speed, head-on car collision involving the two suspects, who were hospitalized. The incident began about 10:15 a.m. at Imperial Egyptian Stud horse farm in the 2600 block of Mount Carmel Road. Office Manager Debbie Lee said two men approached her asking for job applications. "As soon as they said it, I thought, `You want a job as much as I want to roll in the snow,'" Lee said. When Lee told the men the farm wasn't hiring, they retreated toward their car, a white Cadillac, she said.

Little to be gained from Lowe's proposal I oppose Lowe's coming to Montgomery Road for many reasons: quality-of-life issues (traffic, noise, pollution, early-hour deliveries, 25 tractor-trailers a day making deliveries) and economic issues (residential devaluation; no true need for another home improvement store -- why risk putting a small competitor out of business and creating yet another vacated commercial property in our area?). There is no benefit to bringing Lowe's to our community other than the YMCA (a quasi-public institution which receives grants from state and county funds)

Mary Christmas, a well-known figure on Maryland's thoroughbred racing circuit for the past 65 years, died Monday of cancer at her Timonium home. She was 87. Mrs. Christmas had been business manager of Idle Miss Farm, a celebrated 140-acre horse-breeding operation in Monkton in northern Baltimore County. The farm was started by her husband, B. Frank Christmas, one of the state's best-known trainers and breeders of thoroughbreds. They were married in 1953. He died in 1979. "She was slim, trim, a semibossy kind of lady.

The woman who nearly brought down a president - and brought round-the-clock media stakeouts to her suburban cul-de-sac - can no longer be counted as Columbia's most talked-about resident. Linda R. Tripp has moved out of the Cricket Pass home where she recorded Monica Lewinsky discussing her sexual relationship with President Clinton. Tripp has not sold the house but is living in a small cottage on a 100-acre horse farm in Marshall, Va., and has registered to vote there. Tripp's recordings exposed the White House sex scandal that culminated in President Clinton's impeachment in December 1998.

The woman who nearly brought down a president - and brought round-the-clock media stakeouts to her suburban cul-de-sac - can no longer be counted as Columbia's most talked-about resident. Linda R. Tripp has moved out of the Cricket Pass home where she recorded Monica Lewinsky discussing her sexual relationship with President Clinton. Tripp has not sold the house but is living in a small cottage on a 100-acre horse farm in Marshall, Va., and has registered to vote there. Tripp's recordings exposed the White House sex scandal that culminated in President Clinton's impeachment in December 1998.

THE HALLS OF Hampstead Elementary School have been transformed into the area's largest art gallery, with 670 works of art by pupils of the school on exhibit until the end of the month. The art show opened last week in conjunction with a schoolwide millennium celebration and quilt unveiling. Parents and friends filled the school, anxious to see the artwork of so many talented youngsters. Exhibits are arranged by grade, and visitors to each exhibit can see myriad interpretations of a single theme, each one compelling.