By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
RALPH LAUREN was lying on the grass in the late afternoon sun, eyeing the willowy teenage girls, flushed from humidity, cantering their steeds. Clad in an orange Polo shirt, Ralph — the Yorkie, not the noted designer — was but one of many preppy attendees of the Hampton Classic horse show, where it actually feels appropriate for a dog to wear a collared shirt rather than a collar.
Of the more than 5,000 horse shows each year in the United States, experienced equestrians say the Classic is the most glamorous and excessive, with eight days of competitions through Sunday, drawing not only the best riders but models, moguls, dilettantes and the likes of Billy Joel and Quincy Jones.
“Almost every rider here has an H-belt on,” said an Hermès representative as she straightened the $4,450 saddles in an open-air boutique on Monday. This Sunday, for the grand prix finale, tables in the V.I.P. tent will be laden with china and topiaries. “It’s sort of an unspoken competition whose table is getting the most buzz,” said Christopher Robbins, the Classic’s caterer for 20 years.
“Every little girl who starts to show-jump wants to end up at the Hampton Classic,” said Anna McKnight, 22, a competitive jumper and lifelong equestrian who assists the socialite Jane Holzer with her art dealings. “Anyone who’s lucky enough to do this really is the luckiest little girl. You could be shopping or hanging out with a boyfriend, but no. All of us are traveling and out with our horses.”
“All of us” includes a fair number of daughters of the wealthy and prominent who are registered to compete this year, including Georgina Bloomberg, 24, a daughter of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; Jessica Springsteen, 15, the daughter of Bruce Springsteen; and Destry Spielberg, 10, whose father is Steven Spielberg. Also active in the sport, which at its highest level requires horses that cost $500,000 and up, are the daughters of Glenn Close, Tom Selleck and Paula Zahn, though they are not expected to compete at this year’s Classic.
One appeal of the sport to such privileged young women, say those who know them, is that it allows these daughters, if they are good enough, to trot out from the shadows of high-profile parents and to distinguish themselves in their own right.
“Georgina really hates being put in the same sentence as her father,” said Mason Phelps, a 1968 Olympic equestrian team member who is now a publicist for the international horsy set. “She’s a Bloomberg, yes. But she has represented the United States. She’s done it all on her own.”
Ms. Bloomberg is expected to make the top 30 horses for Sunday’s grand prix. Her father has attended past Classics, as has Mr. Springsteen. Another potential guest who may turn heads is Ms. Bloomberg’s Irish equestrian beau, Cian O’Connor. The Irish Independent of Dublin called them “the hottest couple on the show-jumping circuit.”
Many horsewomen said their parents put them atop ponies when they were still in diapers, too young to know the status and exclusivity attached to competitive riding. By adolescence, they were horse-crazy.
“If there wasn’t that passion for it do you think that these people that have marble bathrooms would be willing to use porta-potties every year?” said Sale Johnson, the equestrian and owner of top horses, who was formerly married to the Jets owner Woody Johnson.
Hillary Dobbs, a show-jumper and daughter of the CNN anchor and journalist Lou Dobbs, was on a horse by age 5. Before long she was cutting photographs of star riders out of horse magazines. Today, some professionals cite her as the sport’s next big thing.
At 19, she has the restrained manner one might expect from the child of a television personality, but which is also necessary for an equestrian who, for the first time this year, is competing against champions on the grand prix level, the sport’s highest. Yet her face brightens, the corners of her mouth turn up, when she talks about her horses.
“They’re like my children,” said Ms. Dobbs, who will begin her sophomore year at Harvard this fall. “I have a very sensitive mare that I wouldn’t ride as hard as my stallion. The relationship with each of them is different.”
At her stabling area on Sunday, she swiftly readied herself for her first competition of the week, placing a net over her long thick hair, polishing her boots and pulling on spurs. Her right sock was inside out. She accidentally put it on that way once and won her biggest competition as a junior, the Prix des States. “After that I wasn’t going to change anything,” she said.
Along the dirt road to the stables, a young woman stopped and looked down from her horse: “Is that your new custom coat? I love it.”
Ms. Dobbs smiled, then swung open a gate to introduce Quincy B., one of her five horses. “Come here honey,” she said. When he began nibbling her navy coat, she turned his stately head to hers and whispered, “Not the new buttons.”
Despite gentle exchanges between human and beast, show-jumping is rough and tumble. Riders compete on a course of about 16 jumps, some five feet high or more, judged on speed and cleanly clearing the obstacles. In the related hunter division, riders are judged on style, with speed less important.
Missy Clark of North Run Show Stables in Warren, Vt., who trains Ms. Dobbs, compared hunter competitors to figure skaters. Jumpers are ice hockey players. “It’s someone that wants to compete and go fast and get roughed up,” she said.
On Grand Prix Sunday, the last big social event of the Hamptons summer, many nonhorse people go to see and be seen, not to follow Olympic hopefuls.
“I’ve been in that tent,” said Michael D’Ambrosio, an agent who finds show horses for equestrians and is married to Anthony D’Ambrosio, an international course designer and grand prix-winning equestrian. “You’re lucky if you can see a horse jump a fence. Everybody is standing up and talking and waving.”
The percentage of female and male competitors at the Classic is almost equal, though riders say there are more women and girls at the beginner levels. Ask them why and the refrain is universal: “Girls love horses.”
“Once a little girl falls in love with horses, it never goes away,” said Vicky Moon, an equestrian and the author of books about horsy life. “I’m just like a little kid,” she said. “I kiss my horse on the nose. If I could kiss him on the lips I would.”
For girls who grow up with the world at their feet, insiders say, the sport has the potential to teach them to care for someone other than themselves. They learn responsibility that children of privilege are not always asked to bear; they learn to work with a partner; and they come to understand the need for discipline. “My mother used to say it kept us all in line,” said the socialite and equestrian Cornelia Guest.
Eventually, some even find courage. The horses “teach you to trust yourself,” Ms. Guest said.
When Ms. Johnson’s father, who played polo, was forced to throw himself off a horse because its hoof became caught in a gopher hole, he told his daughter not to ride. She did so anyway and once took a bad spill on a highway, hitting her head during an attempt to race after a friend.
“I thought I was Annie Oakley,” Ms. Johnson said.
Undeterred, she bought a horse in college and then a motorcycle to get to the stables. Years later, each of her three daughters would ride. The youngest, Daisy, is competing in this year’s Classic.
If one is lucky to have a child who has a passion, said Ms. Johnson, paraphrasing a speech once given by Daisy’s high school principal, “it’s your job as parent to support that passion.”
This particular passion does not come cheap. There are dress boots ($150 to $2,000), saddles ($600 to $5,000) and bridles ($120 to $300). Then there is the matter of the horse. At the grand prix level, they often cost millions.
“There are no $25,000 grand prix horses out there,” said Melissa Cohn, the president of Manhattan Mortgage and an avid equestrian with two daughters who ride.
Nowadays European warmbloods from the Netherlands, Germany and France are in vogue. “I was in Holland,” Ms. D’Ambrosio said. “You can’t believe how many people I ran into — Americans! If you go to the big barns in Holland you’d better get there — I don’t know how you can get there first. Or second. It’s like a stampede.”
Mr. D’Ambrosio explained: “There are more people of means that need to have themselves well mounted, and there are only so many horses in the world or even top prospects. A quality animal is a very precious commodity these days.”
Certainly there are less-expensive horses and local competitions, but skimping on a horse at a show like the Classic is not an option. It is critical the horse have spirit, heart and drive, said Stacia Madden, a head trainer at the Beacon Hill Show Stables in Colts Neck, N.J. “A lot of it is wanting to be a competitive horse.”
The same can be said of the rider. Or the rider’s parents. In her debut at the Classic, Shelby Kim, age 4, placed fourth in the lead line competition in which 35 toddler equestrians ages 2 to 4 rode ponies led by a trainer, parent or older sibling. Shelby resumed practicing the next morning.
“When I was pregnant with her,” said her mother, Sunwoo Kim, “we always joked she would be a lead line girl.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
