THE HAMPTON CLASSIC

The Hampton Classic is eight days of show jumping and hunters at the end of summer on its own showground of sixty-five acres on Snake Hollow Road, in Bridgehampton, from a Sunday to the Sunday after: some fourteen hundred horses in more than two hundred competitions, international jumping at five stars and two with the hunters beside it, opening with a class for small children on ponies and ending on the last afternoon with the Longines grand prix. It is run as a not-for-profit, and Southampton Hospital has had more than two million dollars from it.

In 1976 a hurricane blew down every stabling tent the night before it opened. Hundreds of horses were evacuated, the show opened a day and a half late, and it became “the horse show that survived the hurricane”.

Lake Agawam

A horse show was held in Southampton from the early 1900s, “on the sprawling open fields overlooking Lake Agawam”. It stopped for the First World War and came back in the 1920s. The Southampton Riding and Hunt Club was formed in 1922 and opened in 1928, “a showpiece for the entire eastern seaboard”, and kept the show until the Second World War.

It was revived from 1952 to 1958. In 1959 Mrs. Morris Scott Wadley reorganised it to raise money for the Parrish Art Museum, incorporated it as the Southampton Horse Show and held it at the Stanley Howard Estate in North Sea; then it lay dormant. In 1971 Mrs. Edwin M. Schwenk, Jr. revived it at the Topping Riding Club in Sagaponack, for the Hampton Day School.

In 1976, at the suggestion of Marie-Christophe de Menil, it became a five-day “A” rated show at Dune Alpin Farm in East Hampton: the year of the hurricane. The next year “the Hampton Classic formally incorporated the Southampton Horse Show, and was run as a benefit for the Southampton Hospital. A Grand Prix with a $10,000 purse was offered.” Bernie Traurig won it on Southside. In 1981 the FEI made the grand prix the first of the qualifiers for the following year’s World Cup Final.

In 1982 it moved to Snake Hollow Road, and seven days before it opened a freak tornado tore through the stabling tents. A day was added in 1984, for a full seven days of competition, and in 1986 opening day moved to a Sunday, so that the show spans two weekends. 1985 was the Year of the Mud; Hurricane Bob came in 1991, and in 2011 Hurricane Irene held back the start by three days and pressed eight days into five. In 1989 Michael Matz, a week after surviving the air crash at Sioux City, won the grand prix on Schnapps.

The Two Weekends

The first Sunday belongs to the Leadline, for small children led on their ponies and “probably the tensest competition all week”, and then to the opening ceremonies. The Monday is Animal Adoption Day, with general admission free. Through the week the jumpers and the hunters show in the rings, and there are eighty shops on the grounds.

In 2026 the Friday had the Douglas Elliman CSI5* Grand Prix Qualifier, for $116,100, and the Saturday was Kids Day. For the last Sunday of 2027 the two-star grand prix is set for eleven, and the Longines Hampton Classic 5* Grand Prix, for four hundred thousand dollars, for three. There is more than a million dollars in prize money across the eight days.

In 2009 the US Equestrian Federation made the Classic a Heritage Competition, only the second show ever named one, and since 2013 Longines has kept the time.

In 2026, the fifty-first, it ran from 23 to 30 August, and Peter Leone judged the Leadline, standing in for Joe Fargis. Thirty-one started in the grand prix, from ten nations, and two came back for the jump-off: Kent Farrington, the world’s number one, on Greya, a twelve-year-old Oldenburg mare, beat McLain Ward on Lestro VD Valckenborg, 41.82 seconds to 42.56. It was Farrington’s third win, after Voyeur in 2012 and Zafira in 2013.

What to Know

It runs from a Sunday to the Sunday after, in the last week of August, with the grand prix on the final afternoon. In 2027 it is from 29 August to 5 September, and Grand Prix Sunday is 5 September. The main gates open at eight each day.

General admission is paid by the car: twenty-five dollars a carload for parking, at the gate or online, and cash is not taken. The Classic Club, ringside in the Chalet Tent from Thursday to Sunday, costs from two hundred to six hundred dollars a person a day, with food and soft drinks. The VIP tents sell no single seats: “access is only available by purchasing a full table or as part of a larger sponsorship”, and tables for the whole week have a waiting list. No outside alcohol is allowed, and no caterer may deliver to the grounds.

The show calls itself “a casual, country, daytime, outdoor event” and says “Country Casual” wear “is just fine”, with comfortable walking shoes; “fancy hats” are sometimes worn, especially on Grand Prix Sunday, but are “never a requirement”. A lounge suit in a light cloth, a level above what is asked, with shoes for grass and gravel. There is very little shade, and the grandstands are open to the sun.

The Hampton Jitney runs from Manhattan to Bridgehampton, and the Long Island Rail Road stops at Bridgehampton on its Montauk Branch. By car, the Long Island Expressway to Exit 70, then east by Sunrise Highway and Montauk Highway through Water Mill to Snake Hollow Road. The show lists hotels only as paid advertisements, and refers visitors to the chambers of commerce of Southampton, East Hampton and Sag Harbor.

The mistake is to come on Grand Prix Sunday without a reserved seat. The two grand prix are “the only events where reserved tickets are required for the grandstands. There is no standing room option to view the Grand Prixs.”

The Court

The Hampton Classic is not the Court’s own. A table in a VIP tent for Grand Prix Sunday is sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in Southampton, East Hampton or Sag Harbor, and the table afterward. The Court is in Bridgehampton earlier in the summer for the polo.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.