If You Go
The 50th running of the . Saturday, April 18. Gates open at 9 a.m. The first race at 1:30 p.m.The last race ends at about 5 p.m. Kingston Downs, Georgia, between Cartersville and Rome. Tickets: $30, available at www.ticketmaster.com or at select Publix Supermarkets. Children 12 and under are admitted free. The races are held rain or shine.
Other amusements: The race track will be host to a crowd of women in elaborate hats, a hat competition, sky divers, camel rides, a Jack Russell Terrier race and a climbing wall. Information: 404-237-7436
Wild hats, sweaty horses and mint juleps will be the order of the day Saturday, when horse fanciers celebrate the 50th running of the Atlanta Steeplechase.
Staged in Roswell and Cumming for its first 28 years, the event has been held at Kingston Downs, in Rome, since 1994. It will attract some 30,000 visitors, most of them from Atlanta. It will also attract a few dozen thoroughbreds, along with their owners, trainers and riders, vying for $110,000 in prize money.
The steeplechase began in 1966 at the late John Wayt’s Horseshoe Bend farm. He and fellow horseman George E. Chase both liked to chase foxes in the Shakerag Hunt, and collaborated on hosting a race in what was then a cornfield and is now a subdivision.
Their children helped by cutting pine limbs and hand-stuffing the brush in home-made jumps. The course had no highway access, but Wayt promised his fellow organizers he’d have a road cut to the location. Workers were still spreading gravel when the first guests arrived.
George E. Chase Jr., now chairman of the event’s board of directors, said his father didn’t know if the race would be a success. He and Wayt sought “guarantors,” to cover any shortfall. Today the list of guarantors from 1966 reads like a Who’s Who of old Atlanta, including Cot Campbell, Comer Jennings, Julian LeCraw, Clark Howell, Robert Woodruff and Rankin Smith.
Some 9,000 attended that first year. The race moved to Cumming in 1971, to Seven Branches Farm, also a Wayt property. When the Department of Transportation declared that an outer loop would run through the Cumming property, the race moved again, to Rome. The steeplechase thrived. The outer loop did not.
Nestled in a bend of the Etowah River, the Rome property was originally assembled by Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, but was acquired by Belgian transplant Carl Bouckaert, a vinyl floor covering magnate, and, it so happens, an expert horseman. Bouckaert was a member of the Belgian equestrian team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and was an individual competitor in the 2012 London Games.
His sons, Nicolas and Stan, are members of the board. They ride horses occasionally, but prefer dirt bikes. "You don't have to feed them every day and you can leave them in the garage for a week without a problem," said Nicolas, 32. The two are also in the music festival business and on Memorial Day will host the second annual CounterPoint festival on the Kingston Downs grounds. In September, they will host TomorrowWorld festival in the Chattahoochee Hills area, south of Atlanta, another family property.
Bill Gallo, director of racing for the National Steeplechase Association, based in Fair Hill, Md., has high praise for the Kingston Downs track, which he said is well-maintained and lush.
High quality turf at the track makes for a safer race, he said, but added, “There’s inherent risk, whether on flat or on jumps. The horse is galloping 30 miles an hour and jumping a four-and-a-half foot fence. But safety is one of the critical elements to our association. We try to keep it safe for horses and riders.”
The steeplechase has raised money for charity each year. This year's beneficiary is Bert's Big Adventure, an organization run by radio personality Bert Weiss that takes chronic and terminally ill children to Disney World
There are five races in the all-day event. The Georgia Cup carries the largest purse, and the sponsor, Budweiser, brings along their famous Clydesdales, who parade into the fair grounds and threaten to steal the show from their puny thoroughbred brethren.
