The Chronicle of the Horse made its debut in 1937 with equestrian news of national and international significance—often focused through a local viewpoint. This year the Chronicle joins the Commonwealth of Virginia, which turns 400 in 2007, in commemoration.

Initially called The Middleburg Chronicle, the weekly journal, then a tabloid-size newspaper with a yearly subscription price of $2.50, was established by publisher and editor Stacy B. Lloyd Jr. and managing editor Gerald B. Webb Jr.

The publication chronicled village life in Middleburg, local and national government, carried a cooking column entitled “Pork Pie”, and included at least three gossip columns.

Issue No. 1, Sept. 17, 1937, consisted of eight pages and named the first 100 subscribers. The group included names that live on in the history of horse sports, steeplechasing, flat racing, foxhunting and horse breeding alongside Virginia bluebloods and New York socialites. The surnames Belmont, Fairfax, Phipps, Vanderbilt and Whitney are still recognizable to many modern horsemen.

Departments in the first issue included “Horse Directory” and classified ads. Boxed ads promoted horse shows, saddleries and custom-made tailors. Real estate was also featured, along with local markets, banks, restaurants and “a very reasonably priced” portrait by Gilbert Stuart. An ever-lengthening sporting calendar was in there too, along with complete horse show summaries.

Topical weekly features included “Hunting Notes,” usually of Virginia hunts, but also from as far away as Colorado’s Arapahoe Hunt. “The Horseman’s News” mused over the army remount and the vagrancies of scent. A farming column also appeared each week.

Steeplechasing, polo and flat racing were big news then, as were fly-fishing, shooting and America’s Cup [yacht] racing. Results from Thoroughbred sales listed breeding and bids for each lot number.

Photographs and cartoons were also an important part of the early Chronicle, and photos graced the back cover, mostly candid personality shots of horsemen. Back then, photos of women on horseback were most often sidesaddle. Those astride were most often without helmets!

Like today, the Letters To The Editor were abundant and popular. In the early years most praised the publication or squawked about the gossip columns. Very shortly, the letters became a public forum for important issues of the day.

First Principles
Sept. 17, 1937
Middleburg is a name whose influence is not confined to the environs of its county or even its state. It is a name that stands for sport, for the great institution which is the horse, for a great farming and hunting community that is known in the far away places where men and women have penetrated to carry with them the traditions that lie behind the annals of sport in the United States.

Realizing the significance of the unique position which this community occupies, the editors of the Chronicle wholeheartedly assume the task of publishing Middleburg’s newspaper.

The first issue and succeeding issues are dedicated, therefore, not alone to those who have always made this part of the country their home, but also to those who come only to enjoy for a few moments the pleasures of the famous countryside and then to depart to carry with them in their hearts a fragment of what they do here as a happy remembrance until they come again.

The Middleburg Chronicle is, accordingly, a local newspaper which has the good fortune to be able to list in its pages the activities of a sporting nation and still remain local in scope.

The great circumferences of this portion of Virginia includes the largest horse breeding industry in the United States, it encompasses the most famous fox hunts in the country, here are the oldest shows and here is the home of the Thoroughbred.

Surprises Fill Card At First Race Meet
Sept. 17, 1937
The Autumn season of Hunt Race Meets has started again, but, instead of its usual big bang of a successful opening on Labor Day at Rye, New York; this year the bang was but a pop.

There were three starters in the big timber race and Fugitive with Randy Duffey up, galloped around alone when Ghost Dancer swerved and sprawled over the first fence, loosening Johnnie Harrison and Little Dan fell at the same obstacle which was a bitter disappointment to Charley White.

Missing Cady Wins Fairfax Horse Show
Sept. 17, 1937
It was a triumphant parade of Mrs. John Hay Whitney’s Llangollen thoroughbreds that carried away the tri-colored ribbon Championship and Reserve honors in the Fairfax Horse and Pony Show held Saturday, September 11. Missing Cady, a spotted bay, a big winner for the past year, took top honors over his stable-mate, Nobody’s Fool in an American Horse Shows Association show which had some 150 entries.

Winning the Light Weight Hunter class, a second in the Hunter Hack and Saddle Horse Thoroughbred Type division, Missing Cady went boldly and consistently to the jumps, ridden by Mr. Waugh Glascock and Dick Kirby. Nobody’s Fool garnered blues in the Corin-thian and Middle and Heavy Weight classes.

Virginia Horses And Riders Prominent In National
Nov. 5, 1937
Well, there may have been horse shows during the year but top of them all, the 52nd National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden, got underway… with the real ceremony marked in the parade of International Military Teams, representing Belgium, the Netherlands, the Irish Free State, Canada and the United States.

In The Country
Dec. 1, 1937
The lovely Mrs. George Howe has just returned with Mr. Howe from a shooting trip to Thompson, Ga., staying with the Walter Edges at their plantation. They were all there for the Reginald Bishop’s Mount Defiance home for the sale last Tuesday… Daniel Sands, William Street, Robert Young, Horace Moffett, Miss Jane Wilbur, Alex Calvert, Humphrey Finney of The Maryland Horse, Hubert Phipps…some two hundred in all.

Letters To The Editor
Dec. 24, 1937
Topper
In the last two issues, Nardi’s ad (The Riding Habit Shop In New York, see below) has started something, not only in giving rise to the question as to how women riding astride should turn out, but also in inspiring some who do turn out stride to dress more smartly. Why women ride in such short coats or jackets mystifies me completely, because, as we all know, it doesn’t produce such a striking picture to anyone following immediately in the rear. When one sees and studies some of the women in the hunting field to-day one wonders whether they have ever seen themselves in the looking-glass.

Horse Directory
Oct. 8, 1937
FOR SALE: Detta-Middleweight hunter prospect; 5 yr. old brown half bred mare by Repulse; natural jumper; over 16 hands; quiet, has been ridden by children. $600. Daniel Cox, The Plains, Va.

FOR SALE: Scotch Rum-Hunter or brush prospect; 6 yr. old chesnut gelding; 15.3; by Scotch Broom, out of Rummage by Heno; Excellent jumper. $300. Daniel Cox, The Plains, Va.

Classified Directory
Oct. 15, 1937
PERSONAL-Man of national recognition, living in Washington, attractive, athletic, though forty, medium height with financial independence, resourceful, kind but positive, has great future, can fall in love, wants wife of 30 or over, without children, who is idealistic, slim, easy to look at and get along with, who is spirited and with varied interest, not too social, who will be willing to live in the hunt country, apply in writing to “Sitting Bull”, Middleburg.

PERSONAL-Man living in Northern Virginia, interested in horses and the life of the hunt country, with good disposition and health, not wealthy, of good social standing, and well known, wants young and charming wife, with sense, loyalty, truthfulness, sense of humor and good mind. Preferably in twenties, with income, willing to make matrimonial venture on cooperative basis. Apply in writing to “Candid”, care of this column.

FOR SALE-One set of poker chips, no further use for them, used, but in good condition, in colors. Apply to Captain R. J. Kirkpatrick, Twin Oats, Warrenton, Va.

Pork Pie
Nov. 12, 1937
Carol White
Taking Time Out From Pimlico, Mrs. White Finds A Food Color Scheme From Mrs. Sloane

I have been Pimlicoing like a mad thing these last few days and outside of a hot roast beef sandwich or a chicken salad I have seen nothing that could possibly tempt anyone (except one thing, which I must tell you about.)

Crab meat soup, given to me by Mrs. Tom Davis and a footnote says that it is “very much of a meal.”

1 pound of crabmeat
1 “quart” of milk (she has a French cook)
1 quart of cream
2 egg yolks
1 green pepper
2 teaspoons butter
3 teaspoons mustard
1-2 cups sherry
salt and pepper

Bring cream and milk to boil, add green pepper. Thicken with flour, add butter, mustard an egg yolks. Bring to boil gently and then add crab meat. Just before serving put in sherry.

In each plate or cup put a slice of lemon and one of hard boiled egg. This serves 10-12 persons. If you can swing it, serve a lot of champagne with this. If not, then sherry.

Jackie Burke