The weeklong Hampton Classic Horse Show, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is to open Sunday at the Snake Hollow Road showgrounds in Bridgehampton with leadline classes from 8 a.m. for 2 through 7-year-olds in the Grand Prix ring.
Known as Local Day, Sunday will be devoted largely to hunter competitions in which Long Island riders will vie, most of them taking place in the Anne Aspinall ring from 8 a.m. The $10,000 Marders Hunter Derby is to be contested there at 2. The $30,000 Wellington Jumper Challenge, in which some of the show’s top riders are to compete, is slated for a 1:30 start in the Grand Prix ring.
Marty Bauman, the show’s communications director, said this week that “13 Olympians, top international stars from 22 countries, and the three Grand Prix finishers from last year are ready to contest the courses designed by Nick Granat.”
Kent Farrington, the world’s number-one — and the Grand Prix winner here in 2012 and 2013 — heads the list, which also includes McClain Ward, a record seven-time Grand Prix winner, Daniel Bluman, a three-time Grand Prix champion, Mario Deslauriers, who won the Grand Prix in 2019, and his daughter, Lucy, who was the runner-up to her father that year. Also expected are Shane Sweetnam, Darragh Kenny, Nayel Nassar, Uma O’Neill, Thaisa Erwin, Luis Fernando Larrazabal, Isabella Russekoff, Beat Mandli, Alberto Michan, Lillie Keenan, Karen Polle, Mimi Gochman, Alex Matz, and Rene Dittmer, the reigning Hampton Classic Grand Prix champion.
Jumper classes are to begin next Thursday, with the Classic Grand Prix capping the show on the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 31. The Classic’s website, hamptonclassic.com, has the full schedule.
