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Country ZEST & Style Summer 2025 Edition
Horses and History
The Warrenton Horse Show
The Warrenton Horse Show has been a tradition since 1899. This year, the show will take place at the East Shirley Avenue grounds Wednesday, August 27 to Sunday, August 31.
The John Barton Payne Perpetual Memorial Challenge Trophy was created for the 1936 show. Today, it’s presented to the winner of the Foxhunter Corinthian Class on Hunt Night, the final evening of the show. The bowl and the tray weigh more than 60 pounds. For most of the year, it’s on display at the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg.
Through the years, the trophy has been won by many colorful, accomplished and notable equestrians, including Viola Townsend Winmill, an intriguing woman who rode to hounds and drove big and small carriages. The trophy is engraved for 1938 with Mrs. Robert C. Winmill on Metzler.
The Winmill family spent summers at Clovelly in Warrenton and returned to New York in September in time for their three children to go back to school. The Warrenton Horse Show, held over Labor Day, marked the end of summer and the whole family participated in the jumping competitions, as well as the Corinthian Class and Hunt Team classes.
The Winmills rode their horses from their home at Clovelly to the show, and brought them back to their own stalls for the night. Show officials and out-oftown guests were invited to Clovelly for a buffet lunch on the lawn at noon, returning to the show grounds and resuming the competitions by 2 p.m.
