Kicking Off Fall with my Favorite Kind of Tailgate
Riding boots, hats topped with pheasant feathers, and decked out tables. Fall Gold Cup is my kind of tailgating!
Gold Cup runs in the spring and in the fall at The Plains in Virginia. I’ve been to several spring Gold Cup races and attended my first fall race last year. I was hooked. There’s just something about being in Virginia’s beautiful horse country with its rolling hills as the leaves are changing. Fall Gold Cup seems to be certainly more of a locals event, or at least what I imagine one to be as only a three-year Virginian!
We purchased a lot on Members Hill, which was definitely the way to go. Last year, we tested out the waters on the North Rail last year with a few Members Hill badges. We found our spot this year on Members Hill a row up from the rail, which was such a fun location.
For this year’s tailgate spread, we divided and conquered, packing with us two large rectangular tables (similar ones here and here) for food and our little 5×5 square table (similar here) to serve as our bar. I’ve also linked to a few other sources for tables in this earlier Diner en Blanc post.
We decided to go with silver and white serving pieces. This silver beverage tin (similar here and here) is one of our most-used items from our registry.
We used a combination of vintage silver serving pieces, like this amazing martini shaker we found near Blowing Rock, North Carolina. I pulled it and a few sugar containers that all looked a bit like trophies, playing into the horse race theme.
These fabulous tablecloths were found at Pomegranate, Inc., a new discovery for me. She’s out of Lexington, KY (hello, horse country!), and has some of the cutest linens. Great quality and great prices. Our bar table is the Jockey Silks tablecloth and our green and white larger tablecloth is Equestrian Sketch. The other larger tablecloth is a Ralph Lauren Home one that I found at Home Goods recently. How perfect that Kate brought some of her blue Le Creuset pieces along!
Since we were there all day long, we opted for lots of food and a healthy amount of beverages. The best part of tailgating is running into friends and sharing your spread, right?
We had tons of sandwiches, meat and cheese pinwheels, a fabulous shrimp dip ball, and so much more.
We also made sure to pack plenty of bottled water, sparkling wine, and, of course, bourbon and apple cider.
They had lots of little booths with vendors at Gold Cup selling all kinds of things, from refills of snacks and wine to feathered clips for your hat. Naturally, half of us ended up finding that perfect fall hat and a feathered clip to match!
(B. the Collection dress – she’s tragically no longer designing, but here’s one of her tops and a few of my other favorite 3/4 dresses here and here)
This year’s fall Gold Cup was a fabulous time had by all, and we can’t wait for next year! We’ll be brainstorming our equestrian spread ‘til then – plaids? Stuffed toy foxes? The sky’s the limit.
