The Hampton Classic
michael braverman :: on the hamptons
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My advice to them: put yourself in Shanette Barth Cohen’s shoes and you will feel carefree by comparison. She’s expecting about ten thousand people on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, all wanting to be fed and entertained. Beside that, she has to arrange the care and feeding of 1,500 horses and the well being of hundreds of riders, trainers and grooms. Barth Cohen is Executive Director of the Hampton Classic Horse Show. And while we all know the Classic as one of this country’s top equestrian events, it is also a logistical achievement of immense proportions. At the grounds off Snake Hollow Road, what looked like a farm with some outbuildings just a few weeks ago is now an equestrian city of enormous canvas tents, with streets, lighting, water, a city hall-like command center, security and shops. Remarkably, the show operates with just a few people working very hard for most of the year and a many more working very hard in the weeks leading up opening day. During the week of competition, hundreds of paid workers and volunteers take care of everything from deadheading flowers to shoeing horses. About three weeks before opening day, barns, or really huge striped canvas tents, are erected and stalls assembled within. The barns front on “streets” with gravel plazas that include running water for hosing down the animals—the equivalent of an outdoor horse spa. Exhibitors set up tack rooms with furniture, antiques, equestrian gear, cups and ribbons on display in a competition secondary only to the show itself. Now that the equine stars of the show are taken care of, attention shifts to the comfort of the patrons and sponsors, the folks with deep pockets who are underwriting the show. Including guests, nearly three thousand of them are sheltered in the Grand Prix and United States Equestrian Team tents, over seven hundred feet long and forming two sides of the Grand Prix ring. These tents lack facilities for washing and brushing that the horses have, on the theory that patrons have done this at home. Lavish lunches and so much champagne that it might as well be flowing from a hose, however, amply compensate for any lack of grooming facilities. A grandstand seating 5,000, and tented sponsor chalets enclose the third and fourth sides of the Grand Prix ring. Four other rings, as well as practice areas, additional seating, boutiques, food vendors, press and television facilities, a tent for kid activities and gardens and parking areas are short walks away. All this grew from a small local show. Now one of the largest and most famous in the country; it will be televised this year on Animal Planet. It’s talked about all over; and it’s the biggest social event in the Hamptons. It’s so well organized all we have to do is kick back, sip champagne and enjoy it. Michael Braverman is Editor at Large at Hamptons Magazine and Contributing Editor at Gotham Magazine. He has been the Wine Columnist at The East Hampton Star and he also writes for the polo newsletters, Open Season and Morning Line. We are thrilled to welcome him aboard TheHamptons.com as well! He can be reached at michael[at]thehamptons.com or via our comments page. Braverman is deeply involved in the East End community and serves on the boards of the Hampton Classic Horse Show, the Thomas Moran Trust, the Robert Wilson Watermill Center, and the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. He has lived most of his life in East Hampton, and was a partner in Braverman Newbold Brennan Real Estate. That business was sold to Sotheby’s International Realty ten years ago, after which he became a journalist. |
