A Visit to a Thoroughbred Home

By Mary Beth Karoll

Welcome to the rambling, white-pillared ancestral hunt country home of Mr. and Mrs. Thoroughbred and their illustrious issue. Note how the iron lawn jockey is painted in the pink and green colors of the family's racing silks.

Oh, don't bother to wipe your feet. The dirt you picked up on your tour of the stables merely adds to the lovingly worn air of patrician authenticity. After all, the slight flecks of mud on the priceless, practically threadbare, Persian rug were shed from the boots of the youngest daughter of the house, who just returned from her dressage lesson. She's upstairs, pulling the pigtails out of her hair and throwing her ratcatcher shirt and buff breeches on the floor. Unfortunately, Muffy is at the age where she would rather display posters of teen heartthrobs on her walls than all the ribbons she's won for her jumping.

Come into the living room and take a seat. Just push aside one of the pups snoozing on the sofa. Yes, I'm afraid that the golden labs have pedigrees longer than yours, so they get to rest their weary heads on the needlepoint pillows embroidered with beasties of the hunt. Breathe in the not entirely unpleasant eau de chien, which permeates the worn upholstery.

No, the family didn't purchase those lightly tarnished silver trophies at the Ralph Lauren store. They were won by the generations of thoroughbred beauties you see in the silver-framed photographs arranged on the George III desk and sideboard inherited from Grandmother Thoroughbred. Perhaps the veneer on the antiques is peeling, but they are all original.

Paintings of hunters and hounds hanging all over the house depict animals bred by the family. Daddy and Mumsy had to sell a few pictures at Sotheby's to put Kitty through her freshman year at Pine Manor.

Yes, you could say that the Thoroughbred family is barely hanging on to their blue-blooded lifestyle, but they're Thoroughbreds, and you aren't. I'm sure you can see your way out. Excuse me? Those whips and crops hanging from the hall tree you see in the entryway were bought in a tack shop, not a sex shop. You obviously don't belong here, not that it isn't obvious from your gauche demeanor. Goodbye!

Intelligence has it that such a richly authentic equestrian lifestyle as that ironically described above cannot be purchased. According to Vicky Moon, the author of the beautifully illustrated Equestrian Style: Home Design, Couture, and Collections from the Eclectic to the Elegant (Clarkson Potter, 2008), "Equestrian style......goes beyond hanging a hunting print on the dining room wall to actually leaping over stone walls on your favorite hunter. An unspoken equestrian philosophy surpasses wearing an Hermés scarf; it celebrates riding over jumps in an Hermés saddle. Equestrian style reaches its apex among people who not only love horses, but also practically live with them."

In other words, a true equestrienne does not dine from brand new Hermés or Ralph Lauren silverware and china, but rather invites her miniature pony in from the paddock to share her salad off of the hand-me-down chipped English ironware. The very thought of draping a loud pink and orange Hermés throw over the back of her sofa would make a bona fide horsewoman cringe. A far better decoration on the cracked leather Chesterfield is a feisty Jack Russell Terrier snoozing and teething on the pillows. An ideal Amazon wouldn't be caught dead carrying a Dior Saddle Bag pocketbook with dangling, glitzy charms and would never stoop to ride on a logo-imprinted Gucci saddle. Her barn tote is a beat-up wool plaid bag with holes chewed by the goat that pals around with her high-strung Arabian. Let's face it, the unspoken code of the American aristocracy demands that a coveted Hermés saddle was purchased in the 1940s when Grandmamma was a student at Miss Porter's.

So, what is a self-respecting gal to do if she is not the heiress to an equestrian estate with all the posh accoutrements of the horsy lifestyle? Why, engage in the sport of queens with a French twist. Carla Bruni, described by Chanel impresario Carl Lagerfeld as a "predator," is today's well-groomed answer to that timeless style icon Jackie Kennedy. Both are model horsewomen who effortlessly leaped over a few hurdles in their time. On the cover of Vanity Fair this month, France's first lady is shown photographed in head to toe Hermés, an intriguing personification of feminine power. Unlike Old Master equestrian portraits of nobility, she only lacks a horse, but makes up for it with her feline beauty. Still, Bruni-Sarkozy looks ready to jump astride a saddle just like the deliciously improper Marie Antoinette, who, reportedly, heedlessly spurned the ladylike tradition of riding sidesaddle and mounted astride her steed, a truly shocking and suggestive habit.

We say take charge of the situation, hop in the saddle, and drive a wedge between Mr. and Mrs. Thoroughbred, then assume your place as lady of the manor. Or, if you have some money, just wait for the foreclosure sale at the Thoroughbred estate, "Upson Downs." Nobody needs to know that you'd rather not soil your Manolos stomping in the divots at polo matches and that your idea of an acceptable ride is relaxing high above it all in the recently designed Hermés helicopter.

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