When the store began to serve as a stage stop, Martin seized on the wayfarer trade by boarding horses, as well as selling homemade butter, groceries, and her own sewn creations.

In 1990, Animalport earned $281,000, mostly from boarding horses and pets, but its expenses were more than $500,000, said Harold Finkelstein, the A.S.P.C.A.'s chief financial officer.

But her second home was always Windy Hill Farm in Bedminster, where her mother, Cindy Faherty, gave riding lessons and ran a stable that boarded horses.

The 35-acre ranch includes an equestrian center for boarding and training horses, as well as three B&B rooms, one with private bath, and two cottages, sleeping four and two.

However, by 1994 it had become clear to state legislators that in New York's less rural counties, horse farms, those that are primarily dependent upon income derived from boarding horses and providing lessons, were among the few agricultural enterprises left to be preserved.

Ms. Rodgers, the owner of the 40-acre Good Shepherd Farm in Yap hank who has been giving riding lessons and boarding horses for 36 years, said that riders are attracted to St. Joseph's "mostly by word of mouth."

Recognized as the best trainer and handler of thoroughbred trotters in the country, Burr boarded horses for several prominent people, including President Ulysses S. Grant, William H. Vanderbilt and J. P. Morgan.

We soon went back to the familiar, and then came the schemes-a resort, a clock factory, cutting ice, boarding horses.