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Tryon International Equestrian Center
By Pam Gleason
A premier equestrian facility in North Carolina with so much to offer for horsemen and the community at large: In the middle of nowhere; in the center of everything.
It was a steamy summer night at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina. Thunderstorms threatened in the distance, but the weather at the Tryon Stadium remained muggy and warm as the first horse entered the ring for the jump off in the $78,000 Earl Scruggs Music Festival Grand Prix CSI 2*. This horse, Cyramo Z, owned and ridden by Jacqueline Ruyle from Navasota, Texas, was a petite grey Zangersheide mare, standing about 15.1 hands. She was the smallest horse to jump that night, but what she lacked in size she made up for in speed. Ruyle expertly guided her around the shortened track in a blazing 35.65 seconds, finishing clear and laying down the gauntlet for the four other horses that made the jump off. Could anyone match her?
The answer was no. When the last round was over, Cyramo Z was the winner, and Jacqueline Ruyle took her place at the top of the podium, flanked by Alexandra Worthington with De
L’oiseliere and Lauren Tyree with Voltanos in second and third respectively. It was an allfemale podium, as well as an all-female jumpoff. In fact, of the 19 competitors that rode into the arena that night, the top seven finishers were women, some of them, including Jacqueline and Alexandra, amateurs. They bested prestigious professionals such as the international team members Harold Chopping (Canada), Doug Payne and Todd Minikus (USA).
This was the July 1 edition of Saturday Night Lights, one of the signature events held at Tryon International each summer. The showjumping series, presented by Tryon Horse and Home, begins at 8 pm and is designed to showcase the sport at an elite level. Outside the arena, there was a festival atmosphere with an array of familyfriendly entertainment – hobby horse races and face painting for children, carousel and pony rides, jugglers and soap bubble makers, even a mechanical bull. Before the show jumping started, spectators enjoyed live music on a stage fronting the arena. The Legends Club restaurant offered a ringside dinner, or spectators could choose to watch from comfortable elevated seats or from an adjacent grassy lawn. The experience was created to appeal to a wide audience, not just to horse people, and to provide a way for nonequestrian members of the community to get close to a horse. The entire evening was offered free of charge.
“One of the very earliest commitments that we made was that this place would be accessible to anyone,” said Sharon Decker, who is the president of the Carolina operations of Tryon Equestrian Partners, the private group the owns Tryon International. “So that’s the reason we have a free carousel and free pony rides on Saturday night. We want people in the community to come out and enjoy the horses for free. Sure, we have great places to eat and plenty of places to buy things and spend money, but for anybody to come, there is no admission fee.”
Sharon Decker has been with Tryon International since 2015. She confesses that she was not a horse person before taking this job, but she did have a solid business background, and in fact her previous position was Secretary of Commerce for the state of North Carolina. Mark Belissimo, who is the managing partner of Tryon International, assured her that he was surrounded by plenty of people who knew horses. He wanted someone to run the business.
“My compelling motivation has been job creation,” said Decker, explaining that the Tryon area, which once had a booming textile industry, was lacking in opportunities after the mills closed down. She said that economic impact studies have shown that Tryon International has created about 4700 jobs. Today the facility employs 160 people year round, with close to 400 during the height of the season.
Tryon International, opened in 2014, is an immense facility encompassing 1600 acres in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Equidistant from Charlotte and Asheville, it bills itself as being “in the middle of nowhere and in the center of everything.” Facilities
Lights is held, the International Stadium, the Blue Ridge Stadium, seven additional show arenas, a warmup ring, an indoor arena and a sprawling cross country course that is used for eventing cross country as well as for the marathon phase of combined driving competitions. There are cabins of various sizes for rent, a large RV park and seven permanent stables to house competition horses. The spectator areas include multiple restaurants, the Silo bar, and a variety of shops and boutiques including equestrian and non-equestrian stores.
For people unfamiliar with the horse world, Tryon International is perhaps best known for music festivals, Spartan races and the annual Christmas Market. For horse people, it is famous as the site of the World Equestrian Games in 2018, an event that brought the world’s best horses and horsemen to North Carolina. The facility also holds lower octane competitions and attracts horses and riders from all corners to compete in a variety of disciplines.
“We get people coming here from Georgia and South Carolina,” said Sarah Madden, who is the public relations and marketing manager. “But we also get people from California and Texas, and people from Kentucky or Michigan on their way to Florida in the fall, or on the way back home in the spring. We also have a lot of professionals who come here with sales horses, or horses that need more experience.” Shows often include Olympic riders from various nations, mingling with the locals and raising the standard of competition.
According to the Tryon International website, disciplines at Tryon include dressage, driving, eventing, show hunters, show jumping, mounted games, para dressage, rodeo, vaulting and working equitation. Additionally, there is a new western trail riding program with a stable full of ranch horses provided by Spy Coast Farm Western and available through Tryon Western Adventures. (Trail riding on your own horse is not currently available.)
Along with show jumping, signature events include the Tryon International and the Fork, both four star eventing competitions and two
Combined Driving Events. There are six weeks of recognized dressage, and this year Tryon was the site of the Intercollegiate Eventing Championships and the United States Pony Club National Championship, among other things.
On weekends that Tryon International does not have its own equestrian event scheduled, the facility is available for organizers of other local events, and, according to Sarah Madden, became an especially popular place during and after COVID because the facility was open and had all the necessary protocols in place.
Lewis Pack is one local organizer who started holding competitions at Tryon International in 2020. Pack, a horse show manager who works or runs 48 shows a year, moved his Harmon Classics shows to the facility because they had outgrown their original venue, Harmon Field, a multiuse park in Tryon. He said that competitors at his shows have been excited to compete at Tryon International and that it is rare for young riders on a budget to be able to afford showing at a facility of this caliber.
“My intent is to make sure the riders have a good experience,” said Pack. “I want the kids to have an experience they can learn from, and think, I want to do that again. Any time kids get an opportunity to show in a ring where Olympic riders have competed, it’s good for them.”
In addition to attracting traveling competitors both regionally and nationally, Tryon International has also been a draw for horsemen looking to purchase property in an equestrian area. Not only does having the venue nearby bring in dedicated horsemen, it can also become the deciding factor on where some other professionals take a position.
“We have a new heart surgeon at St. Luke’s Hospital, and coming here became his choice because his wife is an equestrian,” said Sharon Decker. “So people are coming for a lot of different reasons. But I always remind folks, this has been horse country for 100 years. It’s just that now, many more people are finding out about it.”
Impressive as Tryon International is, and as important as it has become to the region in nine short years, Sharon Decker says we haven’t seen anything yet. In addition to expanding the equestrian calendar, Decker says she hopes to add more sporting events to the schedule, especially those that involve young people. In the near future, Tryon International will be unveiling a residential community that will cater mostly to horse people who want to own a base of operations convenient to the facility.
“I think in a lot of ways we are just getting started,” she said.
