By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — There’s a lot that goes into presenting a horse show, especially when it’s the nationally recognized, 99-year-old June Horse Show at the Fairfield County Hunt Club. 

On Saturday, the hunt club’s show had it all — super fans, horse trainers and owners, show officials, club members, vendors and, of course, riders and horses competing for ribbons.

Staged on the club grounds, 174 Long Lots Road, the show ran from Tuesday to Saturday and was open to the public. 

The event attracted riders from all over the Northeast, including some from close to home.

Angie Lawlor, a student at Greens Farms Academy, and Katherine Meyer of Danbury, both ride at Starbuck Equestrian stable in Ridgefield. Despite their age difference — Angie is six and Katherine is 16 — the two are riding buddies, and both won ribbons at this year’s show in different categories based on their ages.

“I loved it,” Katherine said after her turn around the ring astride her horse. “Horses are kind of like therapy,” she said.

Angie agreed. “It’s fun and I love horses,” the 6-year-old said. Angie won two ribbons earlier in the week, according to her mother, Tiffany Lawlor. 

Riding “teaches her so much — teamwork, responsibility, discipline … It’s about the whole thing. It’s not about the winning, but she does like to win,” Lawlor said of her daughter.

Back in the barn caring for their horses that already had won competitions were equestrians from another area stable, Silvermine Farm in Norwalk. Sarah Natale and her husband Ken Markosky have been coming to the June show in Westport for years. In fact, Markosky remembers riding in the show as a junior rider when he was a child. 

The Fairfield County Hunt Club’s large open field and well-appointed clubhouse make it a good place for horse shows, he said. 

The couple’s Norwalk stable has 32 horses, and about 50 riders, including students, horse owners and those who lease their horses. Two of the horses, Athena, a beautiful glossy chestnut horse, and Country Boy won championships for the stable and their riders at the Westport show this year.

Like others at the show, stable owner Natale said that it’s the rider’s relationship with their horses that is at the core of equestrian sports, and not just the competition. “I’ve been riding my whole life, since I was seven.”

The equestrian world is “a whole different world,” agreed Leslie Mitchell from Texas, who travels the country with her husband to officiate at horse shows. She loves the travel and, echoing what many others said at the show, said it provides an opportunity just to be around horses. “I have been coming her for 30 years,” she said of the Westport show. 

Even those who are not riders and have never have been, enjoy the show, according to fan and lifetime Westport resident Negin Janatie, who was watching the horses pace around the ring with her daughter, Ziba Brandfon, 5.

Janatie remembers only one year — 2020, when the show was cancelled because of the COVID pandemic — that she missed seeing the club’s annual horse show since she was a child. 

Westport has changed over the years, she said, especially recently with many new young families moving in during the pandemic. Many Westport events for children now are very crowded, she said.

But some things in Westport don’t change — and shouldn’t — she added, including the Fairfield County Hunt Club’s June Horse Show. 

“It’s a tradition,” she said.

Gretchen Webster is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Westport Journal. Learn more about us here.