Courtyard at Rokeby with monument to the farm's European champion Mill Ridge/Photo by Rhonda Lane
We’ve had a lunch break at Middleburg’s Red Horse Tavern, and now we’re refueled for a busy afternoon.
This is the second post in my series about a recent trip to take the Virginia Hunt Country Stable Tour, an annual fundraiser held to benefit the Trinity Episcopal Church of Upperville, just down the road a piece from Middleburg.
We have cheese to sample, hounds to pet and more adventure to go – so let’s get started.
Rokeby
The pack is on the move in the beagling demo at Rokeby/Photo by Rhonda Lane
Rokeby is the farm owned by the late Paul Mellon and the home of ‘93 Derby winner Sea Hero and the memorialized Mill Reef, whose monument you see in the photo at the top of this post.
Mill Reef was the first horse to swept the European championships in one year: the Epsom Derby, the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.
To the right of the courtyard photo you see at the top of a post was a cheese tasting and sale. We thought about buying a cheap cooler to buy some cheese to take back to the hotel.
Also at Rokeby was a beagling demo. Beagling is done on foot and enjoyed in the late fall – note the proper wool jackets. The prey is the cottontail rabbit, but the bunnies are saved from the cheery little dogs. Once the demo was over, the pups were released for petting and adoration from the visitors.
We got way overheated, even in shorts and tees, in the sun at Rokeby with the hounds, so we returned to the Red Horse for iced tea and nachos.
Old Stone Bridge at Goose Creek
Civil War re-enactors fiddle around in the shade/Photo by Rhonda Lane
Our next stop was not a stable but a bridge dating from the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (early 1800s). The Old Stone Bridge at Goose Creek was the site of a Civil War skirmish that delayed the Union advance about two weeks prior to Gettysburg.
Frankly, visitors stand on the bridge but don’t actually see the bridge. You would have to rappel over the side to see it. Or traipse down through the woods and tall grass (no trail) to the creek.
The bridge area features historians and Civil War re-enactors. This time, we visited with some Confederate troops. We talked cavalry horses and tack. And we heard a little live music.
Peace & Plenty at Bollingbrook
"Hey. We're on our time now. Lay off the camera, will ya?"/Photo by Rhonda Lane
We arrived at Peace & Plenty at Bollingbrook very late in the afternoon. The horses used in the demos had been released from duty, so they played in a pond near the overseer’s house.
Watching them have fun, splashing in the water then rolling on the bank, turned out to be more special than the demo probably was anyway.
Peace & Plenty has plenty of historic buildings on this parcel that was part of a 1721 land grant. We only toured the stable and the overseer’s house.
If you’re into sidesaddle, Bollingbrook is a must-visit. As I said, the demos were over for the day by the time we arrived. And we, perhaps, did not do this lovely farm justice considering the lateness of our arrival. We only toured the stable, the blacksmith’s shop and the overseer’s house.
We returned to our hotel in Chantilly (more about our travel specs will come in a later post) and had dinner that night in a shopping center sushi bar.
But don’t stray too far. Day Two of our trip – where we raced the rain, met an author and paid our respects to a champion — is coming up.
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Tags: beagling, Civil War re-enactment, Peace and Plenty at Bollingbrook, Red Horse Tavern, Rokeby, Virginia Hunt Country Stable Tour
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