It's a Fabulous New Day for Upperville Horse Show

It’s A Fabulous New Day For Upperville Horse Show

By Louisa Woodville

Emily Day of White Post is the new director of the Upperville Colt and Horse Show, the oldest horse show in the United States that draws more than 2,000 hunter-jumper riders to historic Grafton show grounds and Salem jumper rings. It takes place in 2020 June 1-7. “I have a lot of good feelings about Upperville that I wanted to bring to this job,” said the 51-year-old mother of two. “So far it’s been great, and I’m really learning. People on the board ask me to do things, and my job is to get them done.”

Olympic gold medalist Joe Fargis, president of the board, is enthusiastic about Emily’s decision to take on the directorship. “It’s all good, good, good!” he said. “She’s local, she’s smart, she knows horses, and everything about her coming on board is good. She’s a perfect fit.”

Day, 51, looks like she stepped out of a 16 th -century portrait, despite being dressed in jeans and pea-green wool sweater. Tall, with striking brown eyes and an aquiline nose, she has an engaging smile that puts people at ease. She laughs easily and a lot.

“I’m excited about being a part of the Upperville team,” she said. “It’s a show that means a lot locally, as well as internationally and nationwide.” Both Day and the board want to make sure the 167 th edition of the show offers the spectacular grand prix final competition as well as opportunities for local equestrians.

“We want to stick to our roots as we gain popularity internationally,” she said. “Upperville is a very popular place, so there’s always the balancing act between making sure that the locals are able to come [along with Olympic-caliber professionals from elsewhere].”

Day grew up in Unionville, Pennsylvania, where her father—fox-hunter, author, historian, and veterinarian Matthew McKay-Smith—founded the Delaware Equine Center and pioneered a number of innovative surgical and diagnostic procedures. Her mother, Winkie, raised and showed English bull terriers and, like her husband, avidly fox-hunted and competed in endurance riding.

“In 1983 my father sold out his partnership in the Delaware Equine Center and became the medical editor of Equus Magazine in Gaithersburg,” Day said, explaining her family’s move to White Post, where her father had grown up. Upperville Colt and Horse Show 9197 John S. Mosby Hwy. Upperville, VA 20184 USHS1853@gmail.com 540-687-5740 upperville.com

The 2020 edition of the Upperville Colt and Horse Show will take place June 1-7.

Photo by Barre Dukes courtesy of Phelps Sports

Emily Day

Photo by Louisa Woodville

Mackay-Smith’s veterinary expertise helped establish Equus as an awardwinning magazine.

In the early 1930s, Day’s New York grandparents, the renowned author and sportsman Alexander MacKay-Smith and his wife, Joan, visited a cousin, William Bell Watkins, at the time Master of Blue Ridge Hounds. After Watkins took the couple fox-hunting, both were hooked. They bought the 600-acre Farnley Farm in White Post in 1932, named after the original 18 th century Quaker family. Her grandmother bred ponies and her grandfather wrote articles and books, among other things. Editor of The Chronicle of the Horse until 1976, Matthew founded or co-founded the United States Pony Club, the Leesburgbased Museum of Hounds and Hunting, and the Kentucky-based American Academy of Equine Art, and The National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg.

“My grandfather was quite a renaissance man,” she said. “He played a Stradivarius, studied music in Paris, and was a lawyer.” Her grandparents’ farm still holds many memories. “Since I was little, I was coming to ride Farnley ponies,” she said, referring to summers she and her older sisters, Juliet and Joan, would visit from Unionville. She vividly recalls breaking, riding and showing her grandmother’s Welsh and Dartmoor ponies.

“If you got to go to Upperville,” she said, “that was really big deal.” she said.

Now she’s continuing her family’s legacy. “I ran a pretty complicated business with my husband for 30 years,” she said, referring to Daybreak Stables, where she and her Irish-born husband, Jimmy Day, trains steeplechasers and flat horses, breeds thoroughbreds, and operates a sales business.

Running Daybreak involved constantly learning and was complemented by a fox-hunting business she ran until 2010—the year she returned to University of Virginia to finish her degree. While there, she earned a degree in psychology and subsequently became a certified mediator, honing skills to bring people’s divergent interests together—an invaluable asset.

“There’s a lot of knowledge on the [Upperville] board of what needs to be done and how to get it done,” she said. “I’m busily trying to navigate their system and see how they do things. There’s a lot to learn about an FEI FourStar horse show. I’ll wear many and any hats, and I think that’s the idea.”

Upperville Colt and Horse Show

9197 John S. Mosby Hwy.

Upperville, VA 20184 USHS1853@gmail.com

540-687-5740 upperville.com