Rider Billy Entenmann rides George Phillips  , owned by Timber Bay Farms

Carolina Cup Races

South Carolina's largest combined sporting and social event (it has earned a reputation as "South Carolina's biggest outdoor cocktail party"), the Carolina Cup Races take place each spring in Camden, the state's oldest inland town. During its nearly 70-year history, the Cup Race has hosted well over a million visitors at the Springdale Race Course and has served as the site of a yearly reunion of family and friends from all over the state.

Built in 1930 by Harry Kirkover and Ernest Woodward specifically for Carolina Cup steeplechase racing over timber fences, the Springdale Race Course changed permanently to the use of brush hurdles in 1968. Springdale was the first full length European style course in the country where all jumps could be reviewed from the same spot. The course was subsequently owned by Marion duPont Scott, and, according to her wishes, was donated with an endowment to the State of South Carolina to ensure the enduring legacy of the Carolina Cup. In 1961, the Carolina Cup made history by being televised from WIS-TV in Columbia: the first live television of steeplechasing in America.

Today, the fashionable spectacle of sport and sumptuous tailgate picnics draws more than 50,000 enthusiastic fans who watch as the trumpet calls to post sleek thoroughbreds for a day of six races.

The project is documented with thirteen 8 x 10 photographs, two mounted photos of the Cup Races crowds from 1931 and 1999, Springdale Race Course brochures, a bumper sticker, two posters, a book, The Carolina Cup: 50 Years of Steeplechasing and Socializing, and two videotapes: 1999 Carolina Cup Race and Camden, South Carolina, Horse Scenes, 1931. Documentation also includes a program from the 1931 event, an admission ticket and program from the 1999 Cup Races, photocopies of the racing cards from 1982-1999, and an invitation to the 68th Running in on April 1, 2000.

Originally submitted by: Strom Thurmond, Senator.

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