“Like A Wedding Every Year”: Designing Tabletops In The Hampton Classic Grand Prix Tent Is Serious Business

At the Hampton Classic Horse Show, there is a premium placed on appearance.

Whether it’s the precise plaiting of a horse’s mane and tail, the last-minute buffing of a rider’s black boots for maximum shine before entering the ring, or the orderly display of blue, red and yellow ribbons fluttering in the breeze while hanging neatly above each riding stable’s barn area, making sure everyone and everything is impeccably turned out is of the utmost importance at the week-long show, which will run from August 28 to September 4 this year.

While the show rings, boutique garden and stable row are all excellent places to witness the work and precision put into making things look perfect, there is perhaps no better illustration of the commitment to that ideal than the rows of tables set up in the VIP tent on Grand Prix Sunday.

That final day of competition is when many of the riders and trainers who have been working and competing all week long ditch their helmets, hairnets and show jackets for heels and formal wear, and enjoy what is essentially a few-hours-long party with front-row seats to the main event, the Hampton Classic Grand Prix.

While the biggest competitive event of the show is going on inside the ring, there’s a competition with its own brand of intensity happening alongside it.

For the past ten years, Hamptons Cottages and Gardens has hosted the HC&G VIP Tabletop Competition, handing out awards to the individuals and organizations with the best design and decor at their tables, where guests, in party attire, socialize, eat and drink while the horses thunder over jumps just a few feet away.

Aside from naming first-, second- and third-place finishers for best tabletop design, HC&G also gives out awards for “most innovative,” “best overall theme,” and “best floral design.” HC&G also frequently invites guest judges, like caterer and culinary influencer Stephanie Nass, who was a guest judge last year.

HC&G has been carrying out the official competition for the past decade, but going all out with table design is a Hampton Classic tradition that dates back even longer than that. Over the years, some people choose to carry out the design all on their own, but many of them hire professionals, with local florists and landscape specialists like Bridgehampton Florist, Lilee Fell Flowers, Marders, and more on a list of approved florists for tabletop design.

Bridgehampton resident Bobbie Braun has been involved with the Hampton Classic for nearly 30 years and has been deeply involved with decorating the table for Split Rock Farm. Her son, accomplished rider Derek Braun, owns and operates the Lexington, Kentucky-based Split Rock Farm, as well as the Split Rock Jumping Tour show series.

Braun recalled being at the Classic some 20 years ago, and being seized by the feeling that the Split Rock table “didn’t have enough stuff to it,” she said. So she ran over to the Boutique Garden, looking for something special to add a dash of excitement to the table spread. She picked up two white wooden carved ducks from a vendor whose name she can’t recall.

The ducks became a theme and have been a central piece on the tables ever since. They are always surrounded by floral arrangements done by Lilee Fell Flowers, one of the accepted florists for the VIP table design at the Classic.

Braun said that while the motifs and color palettes change from year to year, when it comes to their tabletop design, she always works with Lilee — and always includes the ducks. She also draws on her experience as an interior designer, and looks to other tables for inspiration as well.

She’s seen more and more effort and innovation put into designing the tables as the years have gone by, she added.

“I think the work we see these days is really an art form that should be applauded,” she said.

Like Braun, friends Marsia Holzer and Betsy Battle have also been at it for years, designing the tabletop for the Holzer and Battle table for every Grand Prix Sunday. Both women competed in the Classic for years, with Holzer, who has a home in Water Mill, riding at Topping Riding Club and then later at Sandron, the former Southampton farm of Olympic Gold medalist Joe Fargis. Holzer competed mainly in the jumper division, while Battle, a Wainscott resident, rode in the hunter division.

Because of their background riding and competing, Holzer and Battle always choose an equestrian theme for their table, which is a popular choice at many tables for obvious reasons.

In addition to being a former Hampton Classic competitor, Holzer is also an accomplished sculptor, and always handcrafts an equestrian-themed sculpture to display on the table. One year, she made two saddle sculptures, covering them in moss and flowers, always using local flowers and foliage. Last year, she made two horse head sculptures out of walnut and bronze, inspired by a show she’d seen at the Met called “The Last Knight.”

The table design also included equestrian-themed lunch boxes at each table setting, filled with a simple picnic-style meal, as well as a can of rosé wine.

Holzer also picked bayberry from bushes at the beach near her Water Mill home and incorporated those into the design.

The presence of longtime and experienced tabletop decorators like Braun, Holzer and Battle means the pressure is on newcomers to make sure they bring something exciting and unique to the design competition.

That’s what Ashyn Flanagan felt when she started putting together a VIP table for Mane N Tail, the horse — and human — shampoo and hair care product and grooming company that became a corporate sponsor at the Classic just a few years ago.

“There’s no show that does it quite like the Hampton Classic,” she said, admitting that she and her colleagues were “a little ridiculous” when it came to putting together their first tabletop design.

“I said to myself, this is the first time a grooming company would present as a sponsor, so we have to hit this right,” Flanagan said.

For floral design, she worked with Michael at Bridgehampton Florist, one of the most popular choices for VIP table floral design, and was in search of other special elements for weeks before the show started.

While at a horse show in Kentucky, she spotted equestrian-themed hand-painted ceramic plates and glassware made by Frederique Studios. There were plates with dressage and fox hunting themes, but Flanagan was looking for something more specific to the type of hunter/jumper competition presented at the Classic.

So she commissioned the studio to hand-paint new plates, providing them with throwback photos of horses and riders competing at the Classic. The result was several pieces that invoke Hampton Classic specific locales, such as the elevated announcer’s booth located above the entrance to the Grand Prix ring, and a rider cantering along for a victory lap, the horse draped in a traditional Hampton Classic championship cooler.

“It was our way of giving a nod back to the history of the show,” Flanagan said. “We were so happy, and of course Michael made the flowers gorgeous.”

Last year, in what was their second year in the tabletop competition, Flanagan added a new set of dishes, for a second Mane N Tail VIP table. She said the plates will be retired for a few years, saying she has something different and exciting in the works for this summer’s show, but added that she’s sure to bring them back in the future.

Marders of Bridgehampton is another local business many people call on when designing their tablescapes. Floral designer Denise Kelly uses her familiarity with the tables, the height requirements and other parameters to create designs that work with whatever theme the client has chosen, and said she focuses on “always trying to add some whimsy and push the envelope if we can.”

“Some clients gravitate to local flowers, some request all tropicals,” she said. “Usually, the client will rely on us for sourcing the best vessel for the design, since we carry a large variety of containers and vases. It’s always a fun time of year, as it closes out the summer season.”

Part of the fun of taking a stroll through the VIP tent on Grand Prix Sunday is seeing the wildly different approaches that families, riding stables, and corporate sponsors take to decorating their tables — from understated elegance, or a dedication to a local, rural Hamptons aesthetic, to full-blown opulence, or a full commitment to equestrian themeology, there is a wide array of creativity on display.

That’s why, for many tabletop designers, the planning truly begins a year in advance.

“When I’m at the Hampton Classic, I’m already thinking about what I want for next year,” Flanagan said. “Especially on the final day, when I’m seeing everyone else’s tables and creativity, and there are so many oohs and aahs when you walk around. I take notes on what I thought did and didn’t work. It’s really like having a wedding once a year.”

And the work that goes into the tabletop design isn’t just in service of showing off or winning an award. For many, it’s a way to pay homage to one of the main reasons why the Classic has become, over the years, the kind of show and event that the best of the best riders and show stables from across the country prioritize when putting together their schedules for the season.

“I wanted it to be extremely special, because it’s really all about the horses and the competitors,” Flanagan said. “And it’s about all the people who work to put everything together so beautifully everywhere on the showgrounds. It really is a sacred space.”