BROOKHILL STEEPLECHASE, CLAYTON, NORTH CAROLINA
Even before the Elvis impersonator arrived at the faux-casino tailgate, it was obvious that watching horses run through a field was not the main point of the Brookhill Steeplechase.
The man leaning on a rail as he watched the hat contest said it all, with a sip of his drink and a grin: “Yeah, I heard there was a horse race, too.”
On the first Saturday in May, the same day as the Kentucky Derby, the Raleigh, North Carolina, Jaycees organize this race/eating fest/cocktail party as a fundraiser. Corporations use it for schmoozing clients. But average tailgate fans take it as an opportunity to express themselves in ways from elegant to wacky.
A group of women in little black dresses erected a tombstone-shaped sign proclaiming themselves the Golf Widows of Brookhill and decorated it with roses spray-painted black. Nearby, a white picket fence surrounded another tailgate area, which had horse-shaped balloons floating in the breeze. An elegant group, with white damask tablecloths on their round tables, set up a machine to shoot bubbles into the blue sky. An antiques dealer brought in a lawn jockey, a bronze horse statue, and an antique sideboard-bar for his tent.
But the tailgate casino was the craziest. It had cigarette girls, in short skirts and red sequined hats, walking the grounds with candy in their trays. The group decorated a pickup truck with paper bells and flowers and labeled it “Brookhill Wedding Chapel.” And then there was Elvis, of course. Who doesn’t love Elvis at a horse race?
While waiting for grills to heat up or for secret sauces to work their magic on slabs of ribs, folks sipped beverages in the shade, played bocce ball or horseshoes (naturally), or strolled around to visit. Some watched the hat contest, which was won by a little girl with a two-foot pink stuffed unicorn attached to a very large hat. A “spirit of Brookhill” award went to an appropriately themed chapeau adorned with swizzle sticks, margarita glasses, and tonic water bottles.
The race has been held for more than a decade in rolling fields near the fast-growing Raleigh, North Carolina, area. But that growth is now consuming Brookhill, as has happened with other steeplechases around the country. The farmland on which the event is held has been sold to developers, and the future of the steeplechase is uncertain. Knowing that doesn’t stop the party—it just makes it sweeter.