Boots & saddles; A horse farm in apex provides boarding, grooming and lessons to anyone willing to pony up the dough.

• Author: Martin, Edward

The horse is half a ton of contradiction. Properly trained and guided by a skilled rider, it can combine the grace and finesse of dressage with the explosive power and agility of cross-country jumping. It's a muscular giant on a ballerina's delicate legs, prized for its spirit as much as its submission. At Summit Hill Farm LLC, outside Apex, that contradiction is the pulse of a business that tends the needs of horse and owner and trains both rider and ridden.

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It's a small business--six employees, including owners Ben and Erin Tursam, and annual revenue of less than $200,000. But it's part of a larger and fast-growing industry statewide. The Raleigh-based North Carolina Horse Council estimates Tar Heel owners and riders spend more than $500 million a year at equine businesses, booming because of what might be the ultimate contradiction. In the 1950s, when horse power was still in harness with horsepower on farms, there were 60,000 horses in the state. Today, with cropland supplanted by suburbs, the number has climbed to more than 225,000.

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Here on 34 acres, the horse rules. Summit Hill opened in 2006, two years after its owners wed. Ben, 32, and Erin, 24, each had ridden since childhood. "Erin was a student of mine. A friendship developed, then we dated, and we got married in 2004." At Summit Hill, they both teach. She works with about 25 students--from beginners to the intermediate level--at the riding school. His students--horses and riders--learn competition called eventing. It combines dressage--some call it...