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Horses and Hats -- Stoneybrook

The annual running of the Stoneybrook Steeplechase on a beautiful, partly sunny Saturday at the Carolina Horse Park was more than just horse races. The festivities surrounding the steeplechase — the colorful hat and tail contests and the stick horse races for children — are just as much a part of the tradition. Glenn M. Sides captured these sights of Stoneybrook.

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Stoneybrook Through the Pen of Glen Rounds

Artist, author and raconteur Glen Rounds was one of the most widely published authors of children's books, but he was more famous locally for his off-color cartoon assessments of Stoneybrook Steeplechase on the front page of The Pilot. Rounds died in 2002 at the age of 96.

The annual running of the Stoneybrook Steeplechase on a beautiful, sunny Saturday at the Carolina Horse Park was more than just horse races.

The festivities surrounding the steeplechase - the colorful hat and tail contests and the stick horse races for children - are just as much a part of the tradition.

It is also a time when folks get together to enjoy fellowship and fun. Many come back year after year, generations of families, going back to the days at the old Walsh Farm in Southern Pines.

This year's running featured five races with a purse totaling $55,000.

In the racing portion of the daylong event, Italian Wedding claimed the win in the feature race, the Sandhills Cup, with Danielle Hodson on board.

Hodson had just come off a win in the fourth of the day's five races when she piloted Sparkled to a win in the Centurylink Hurdle race.

The opener of the day saw Jason Ruch on top of Logaritmo as the winners of the Pond House, a 1-mile flat race with no hurdles.

Jeff Murphy rode Ptarmiga to a win in the day's second race, the Stoneybrook Cup.

Liverpool Gloves, also with Murphy on board, took the Stoneybrook Chase race.

As it was back in those days, Stoneybrook is still very much an afternoon in the country with family and friends, as Jane Murray, executive director of the Carolina Horse Park, puts it.

Murray was hoping that attendance would double from the 2009 edition of Stoneybrook, held at the Horse Park on Montrose Road just over the border in Hoke County. The crowd this year was estimated at around 7,000.