SUBLIME EQUINE: With nary a ball or roaring engine in sight, Polk County prepares to host one of the largest sporting events in state history.

AuthorMartin, Edward
PositionCover story

Afternoon storms are building over the mountains of Saluda, though Elizabeth Smith and Nugget are a calm contrast. Nugget awaits his workout, softly snuffling through his velvety muzzle. In competition, he's known as a large pony hunter, hurdling jumps more than half his height, with 1,200 pounds of muscles that ripple under his golden coat.

Astride him, the helmeted high-school senior from Spartanburg, not far below the nearby South Carolina border, seems especially tiny. "We know each other really well," she says, stroking his mane. She and 14-year-old Nugget have trophies to show precisely how well.

The love of horses is endemic at Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, and these owners and their animals are the elite of the equestrian world. A parking lot for the $70,000 air-conditioned trailers that chauffeur them is a sea of silver, with 500 or more squeezed bumper-to-hitch ofi a weekday in June. There are 1,200 stalls and a dozen arenas in which they train and compete. Tammy Tappan, an equestrian-inspired artist, recently opened shop here.

"We sold five bronzes and three paintings in six weeks," she says, at prices of up to $10,000 for the sculptures and $4,000 for paintings.

Dorothy Staley knows horses, too. On Pea Ridge overlooking the center, she's fixing macaroni and cheese in her tidy kitchen. Staley, 74, grew up in an old house that once stood across the road. "My daddy had 96 acres, two milk cows and two horses. But lord, not the kind they've got up here now."

Nowadays, she corrals her four grandkids and four "great-grands," occasionally picking up fried chicken at Roger's Diner, one of the restaurants in the equestrian village down the hill. They stroll around, admiring the horses while she reminisces about growing up in rural, job-deprived Polk County. "I might not live to see it, but I like knowing my grandkids and great-grandkids might have something to look forward to here."

Next month, the 1,600-acre center, propelled by a $200 million investment with another $200 million being pumped in amid a swirl of construction dust and din of equipment, will host the World Equestrian Games. The quadrennial event, last held in the U.S. in 2010 in Lexington, Ky., is the equivalent of the Olympics for horses.

Floridian Mark Bellissimo, managing partner of the Tryon Equestrian Partners LLC, the half dozen investors behind the center, sounds like a caffeinated derby announcer.

"This will be the largest-attended sporting event in the United States in 2018 and third-largest in the world, behind World Cup soccer and the Olympics," he says, not to mention the most-attended sporting event ever in North Carolina. Tickets sell for up to $1,380 for the full 13-day event, and even at that price, more than 100,000 sold in less than two weeks.

From Sept. 11-23, the games will swamp hotels, motels, rented homes, campgrounds and other venues in Asheville, Charlotte, Hendersonville, Forest City, Spartanburg and other surrounding areas. "We expect the total impact to be north of $400 million," Bellissimo says. More than 400,000 visitors will come from 70 countries, and competitors from 38, including the U.S. NBC will broadcast 90 hours, much of it live --the 2014 games in Normandy, France, attracted 350,000 viewers.

The lasting economic impact on this region and the change it's bringing, though, matter more to Staley and her Polk and Rutherford county neighbors than the September competition's explosion of money and publicity will for North Carolina. For one thing, the center, which opened in 2014, is cultivating down-home egalitarianism in a sport associated with the ultra-rich.

Bellissimo and partners originally expected to build it in Wellington, Fla., a long-standing equestrian community near...

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