Now in its 57th year, the Garden State Horse Show at New Jersey’s Sussex County Fairgrounds runs May 7-11 and is eagerly anticipated by many, as it signifies the beginning of the spring show season. The event is the state’s largest horse show and attracts many of the country’s top show hunters and jumpers. In fact, the $50,000 Grand Prix, to be contested May 10, has been known to draw several members of the U.S. Olympic show jumping team.

While the Garden State Horse Show (GSHS) holds a AA rating and features many highly competitive divisions, the event also offers a wide variety of classes to suit every ability of horse and rider. For example, just prior to the Grand Prix, sharing Village Cancer Survivors take center stage at GSHS. The children, members of a group known as Driving for Surviving, will entertain the crowd driving tiny ponies with carts. Other classes include the Bit O’ Straw Hunter Classic, which gives riders who show over modest 2'6" fences their own two-round classic. The $2,500 Troop Jumper Derby, with fences set at 3'6", gives intermediate jumper riders an option to jump just slightly higher than in GSHS’s enormously popular $2,500 John H. Fritz Challenge class with 3'3" fences.

For more information, visit the show’s website, www.gardenstatehorseshow.org.