Escaping for a day to Greenwich Polo

June 27, 2017

Two of the best Sunday afternoons I’ve spent recently found me taking a break from blogging and novel-writing to relish show jumping at Old Salem Farm in North Salem, N.Y. and polo at Connecticut’s Greenwich Polo Club. Both sports figure in the third planned novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” a tale of blood and bloodlines about rival horse families told in part from the viewpoint of a racehorse trying to become the first since Whirlaway to win the Triple Crown and the Travers at Saratoga. ...

Horsing around with Nyquist, the Spring Horse Shows

May 12, 2016

Anyone want to make a bold prediction for this year’s Triple Crown races? Win, lose or draw, the undefeated Nyquist is a star. (We’d say more – except we don’t want to jinx the bay beauty’s chances in the Preakness Stakes May 21 and the Belmont Stakes June 11.)

OK, so we think he has Triple Crown/superhorse potential as well as the ability to develop an Affirmed/Alydar rivalry with Exaggerator. There’s a lot of the gritty Affirmed in Nyquist. And a lot of Seattle Slew as well.

But you don’t have to wait until the Preakness for your equestrian fix. The Old Salem Farm Spring Horse Shows in North Salem are underway. ...

Equine love – the Preakness and Old Salem Farm’s Spring Horse Shows

May 13, 2015

Well, what a weekend for horse lovers. The main event is, of course, the running of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg in the Triple Crown, at Pimlico in Baltimore on Saturday, May 16. NBC will be going live at 4:30 p.m. EDT, with post-time set for 6:20 p.m.

Will American Pharoah become the first horse since my beloved Affirmed in 1978 to win the Triple Crown? Or will Firing Line and Dortmund, his Kentucky Derby rivals, overtake him in the run for the black-eyed Susans? Or will it be the proverbial dark horse?

We can’t say for sure. That’s what makes it a horse race, as they say – and an inspiration for “Criterion,” the third planned novel in my series “The Games Men Play.”

The 6:20 post-time gives folks in the New York metro area plenty of time to enjoy the elegant yin to horse racing’s thunderous yang – the Spring Horse Shows at Old Salem Farm in North Salem, which conclude Sunday, May 17. ...

Down at the (Old Salem) Farm: The Spring Horse Shows

May 6, 2015

It’s always a good time down at Old Salem Farm. One of the loveliest ways to spend the Mother’s Day weekend is with the Spring Horse Shows at Old Salem Farm in North Salem. The Spring Shows, which will award nearly $500,000 in prize money, feature professional and junior riders in hunter competitions, which judge the horse’s form over the kind of lower obstacles you might encounter on a hunt; jumper events, which focus on speed and accuracy; and equitation, which considers the rider’s performance. (Only jumping is an Olympic sport.)

“I like to say jumper is like hockey while hunter is like figure skating,” says Michel Vaillancourt, who won an individual silver medal in his home country at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. The former chef d’équipe, or coach, of the Canadian Equestrian Team, Vaillancourt has been charged with designing the jumper course for the first week of the Spring Shows, which concludes Sunday. The second week runs May 12-17.

But you don’t have to know a paddock from a pasture to enjoy the graceful partnership of rider and horse or the chance to watch the action with family, friends and pets on the rolling grass or the various vendors, mostly artists and artisans doing equine-themed work. ...