Upperville Colt and Horse Show celebrates 157th renewal
Submitted by: Betsy Burke Parker
Phone: 540-364-2929
Email Address: betsyp(at)crosslink.net
Date Added: 6/11/2010
By Betsy Burke Parker
The famed old oaks were likely just twigs back then, but other than that, little about the bucolic scene has changed, here some 157 years later: showgrounds with the handsome Blue Ridge mountain backdrop, contested on pristine fields of green grass by hundreds of summer-slick horses.
Well into the 21st century, the show persists as both the nation's oldest and one of its most prestigious.
The now-mature oak trees now shade the competition arena of the Grafton Farm ring, but little else has changed since the Upperville Colt and Horse Show started in 1853.
The 157th Upperville show, oldest in the nation, runs all week, culminating with Sunday's headliner – the $100,000 Budweiser jumper classic. Classes start at 8 a.m. each day, with hunter, pony and breeding divisions contested on the south side of U.S. Route 50 east of town. Jumpers compete on the north side of the road.
There is no written record of the 1853 show, but organizer – and show chairman until his death in 1906 – Colonel Dulany of Welbourne was said to have created the show to reward and encourage local breeders to improve bloodstock. After much discussion with neighboring planters, a summer show was scheduled for June in the oak grove at Number Six (Grafton), a centrally located Dulany property on the Turnpike (now U.S. Route 50) about two miles east of Upperville. The program of the 1853 show listed just two classes -- one for colts, the other for fillies.
At the initial show there were so many entries and interest was so keen that a sponsoring club was formed, the Upperville Union Club. Richard Henry Dulany was elected president, and Welby Carter, his neighbor at Crednal, served as secretary.
The first published account of an Upperville Union Club show appeared in 1857 in The Southern Planter. The article reported on riding stock, quick draft and heavy draft classes for yearlings, 2-year-olds, and 3-year-olds. Local stallion Messenger, belonging to Carter, had the edge over the other entries, with his get taking four first place prizes. The report called horses bred in Fauquier and Loudoun “fine stock … taken as a whole perhaps the best in the state, and better than can be found anywhere else, except Kentucky.”
In 1856, Dulany imported Black Hawk, a prize-winning stallion at New England state fairs, to stand at Welbourne. The descendant of Justin Morgan was acquired following the Vermont State Fair attended by Dulany and Robert Carter. He also added a Cleveland Bay, Scrivington to the Welbourne roster. The former blue ribbon winner at the Royal Agricultural Show in England was also a prize-winner at fairs in Maryland and Virginia.
Scrivington was at stud at the outbreak of the Civil War but escaped Yankee annexation by being quickly sent off to Pennsylvania in the custody of Welbourne's stud groom Garner Peters. The stallion stayed north, earning his keep by breeding mares, until after Appomattox, when he returned to Welbourne.
During the War the Upperville club was inactive, as Dulany was commissioned captain, Laurel Brigade, 7th Virginia Cavalry. The club was reorganized in 1869, with the word “Union,” with its highly unpopular connotation, deleted from the title of the Southerner's organization.
June shows, with broadened scope, continued, and expanded, but little record exists until after another reorganization after 1894.
Classes and divisions were regularly added until the show became one of the biggest in the nation. In 1958. the show made headlines when a new women's world record of 7 feet, 2-1/2 inches was set by Virginia's Kathy Kusner, then 18, on a gray mare called Freckles.
Today the Upperville show has grown into a week-long tradition with classes for top professionals,local amateurs, juniors and more.
The show benefits the Upperville Volunteer Fire Department and other area charities
Classes, which begin daily at 8 a.m., continue through Sunday, with the highlighted breeding divisions Sunday morning and the jumper classic that afternoon.
Prior to the jumper classic, the Pedigree Country Fair will take place on Sunday at 11 a.m. with pony rides, kids games, terrier races, a Basset Hound demonstration, and a carriage parade.
The show is broadcast on a live Web cast on the show's Web site.
For information, call (540) 687-5740 or (540) 592-3858. For complete schedules and up-to-the-minute results, visit the Web site at www.Upperville.com.
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