New Grand Prix Field Will Have Debut At This Year's Hampton Classic

Last year, when the organizers of the Hampton Classic Horse Show ripped out the 120,000-square-foot natural grass Grand Prix field after the first day of competition, it was not a decision they made lightly. In bringing in bulldozers to uproot the riding surface, they were not only admitting defeat on a project that had cost $1 million to install just three years earlier, but they were also parting ways with a tradition that had been part of the show for decades — the Hampton Classic was one of just a handful of top rated shows in the country that still contested its biggest classes on grass.

But in making that difficult decision — which was done in the interest of the safety of the horses and riders, who had made it clear that the surface was not holding up — the organizers also opened a new world of possibilities for the renowned week-long show, which will open for its 46th iteration on Sunday, August 28.

New all-weather footing that was engineered by a company called I-EquiTek, an industry leader in equestrian arena footing, was installed over the spring. I-EquiTek has installed all-weather footing at some of the top venues in the world, including in Wellington, Florida, and Tryon, North Carolina. After several weeks of test rides and tweaks, it’s ready for its debut at the Classic this year. The surface, which is far more durable and less temperamental than natural grass, will not only meet the safety standards required for horses and riders competing at a high level, but will offer a much higher degree of durability, allowing the Classic to expand its offerings and thus appeal to a larger number of riders looking for a wide variety of classes to choose from when they travel from around the country and set up their operations at the showgrounds on Snake Hollow Road for a week.

For the first time this year, the Hampton Classic will offer both five-star and two-star level classes in the jumper divisions. The star level designations are differentiated by both the amount of prize money offered and the height of the jumps. The new all-weather footing can withstand higher usage and thus allows the Classic to offer more classes in the ring, which in turn helps ensure that the show will be one that many of the top show stables across the country are eager to add to their schedules. Some of the top FEI riders from 13 different countries have already committed to showing at the Classic this year.

Earlier this week, Bill Hawe, the CEO of I-EquiTek, sat outside the Grand Prix ring, surveying the surface that his company had engineered, and which was installed by Travis Gould’s JTWG company.

The surface includes a complex drainage layer underneath, which helps ensure proper moisture content and drainage. The footing itself is a lab-engineered mixture of several different varieties of silica sand, geotechnical materials that look like cut up chunks of craft store felt, and different fiber strands that are almost invisible to the naked eye, with the thickness of a strand of hair.

Balancing out the ratios of those materials and figuring out the proper moisture content is all part of the equation that goes into creating the footing, Hawe said, and it’s the result of extensive lab testing and then further testing when it is installed in the actual arena. It is designed to achieve two important objectives that are, in many ways, at odds — having enough stability to hold up to being ridden on over and over, and providing the kind of support necessary for horses and riders making quick turns at high speed while soaring over huge jumps, but also being gentle enough on their joints and having enough give to prevent injury.

JTWG finished the installation of the surface in May, and finishing touches were added in recent weeks over the summer.

“We spent June, July and August maintaining and testing it, adding water and more sand,” Hampton Classic Horse Show Executive Director Shanette Barth Cohen said, adding that metrics like firmness, grip, cushion and moisture content were the elements that needed to work together in the right way to ensure the surface would perform properly come show time.

“The goal is to make it safe, obviously, and also to have it perform at as high a level as possible,” she added.

Hawe explained that equestrian footing is one of the final athletic playing surfaces to get a technological glow-up. He likened natural grass and previous iterations of dirt or sand riding surfaces to the older versions of Astroturf that professional and collegiate athletes used to compete on. Those surfaces might hold up in terms of wear and tear, but would often cause significant injury to the athletes. The I-EquiTek footing, which was designed and tested in a lab environment, is designed to provide the best of both worlds — high performance and durability, and also safety for horse and rider. Hawe said that the surface is so friendly to the horse that many top level riders won’t even put shoes on their horses when they compete on it.

While the new surface will enable the show to host more classes and potentially draw more exhibitors, Cohen said she and the rest of the organizers and show staff were mindful of the fact that the grass field represented a certain kind of aesthetic that the Classic had become known for, and that preserving that aesthetic was a priority. A grass perimeter is still present around the edge of the ring, and Cohen added that longtime board member and former world class show jumper and course designer Conrad Homfeld has been working on coming up with “a new signature aesthetic.” Silas Marder of Marders Landscaping, assistant site manager Kate Soroka, and others have been part of that effort as well.