UNCOVERING SOME UPPERVILLE HORSE SHOW HISTORY, AND MORE

UNCOVERING SOME UPPERVILLE HORSE SHOW HISTORY, AND MORE

By Vicky Moon

Nina Carter Tabb

There are horses, horse owners, riders and grooms. Then add office staff, advertisers, sponsors, jump crew, groundskeepers, announcers, judges and loyal members.

That makes for a thick brew of questions, answers, problem solving, handshakes and congratulations for the 170th edition of the Upperville Colt and Horse Show.

The show will take place this year June 5-11 at the original Grafton Farm on the south side of route 50 and at Salem Farm across the street for the jumper competition. It concludes with the $216,000 FEI 4* Upperville Jumper Classic on Sunday, June 11 at 3 p.m.

Show secretary and honorary board member Emily Day, office support staffer Haley Alcock and facilities and operations manager Tommy Lee Jones will make it all tick. We have a story in this issue about the gracious old and new trees in and around The Parker Hunter Ring.

And another story about a miraculous solution to a decades long water shortage. There will be food trucks and shops. Mark your calendars for a memorable week. Meanwhile, while working on a research project going through archives, I came upon some newspaper columns in The Washington Post labeled “The Hunt Country” by writer Nina Carter Tabb. I went crazy. Turns out I found dozens of articles and discovered her close ties to the area.

Nina Carter Tabb was born Nov, 21, 1883 and died Jan. 29, 1950. She’s buried in the Sharon Cemetery in Middleburg. She was married to John Mackenzie Tabb (Dec. 10, 1886 to Oct.15, 1918).

Several of her Post columns covered the horse show, but her writing on the Middleburg area just knocks me for a loop. It’s living, breathing local history. Consider this nugget from 1940: “Mr. and Mrs. George A. Garrett of Washington, and her daughter, Miss Elaine Darlington, with several guests, spent the weekend at Chilly Bleak, near Rectortown.”

At that point, I began screaming to the publisher of ZEST across the room. He happens to be my husband. For crying out loud, we live near Chilly Bleak. I used to keep my horses there.

And so, I have properly arranged and paid The Washington Post to re-print six of Nina Carter Tabb’s columns, starting with this issue of Country ZEST. I hope you all will enjoy her work. Cheers, and feel free to scream along the way.