Red Hills Horse Trials in Tallahassee, Florida

The Red Hills Horse Trials, billed in later years as the Red Hills International Horse Trials, were the March eventing competition that filled Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park in northwest Tallahassee every spring from 1997 through 2022. WFSU reported on August 17, 2022, that after a quarter-of-a-century, Tallahassee’s annual Red Hills Horse Trials is ending. In its prime the competition was an Olympic and World Equestrian Games qualifier held inside the city limits, on public land along Lake Jackson, a short drive up North Meridian Road from downtown.

Eventing is often called the horse triathlon, and the Red Hills format followed it closely. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, each horse and rider has to complete three tests during the weekend: dressage, cross-country and show jumping. Cross-country was the day Tallahassee turned out for. WFSU put the crowd at as many as 20,000 spectators a year at Elinor Klapp Phipps Park each March, and Tallahassee Magazine wrote in 2013 that the trials had attracted up to 25,000 spectators over the three days of competition. For one weekend each spring, international riders were the main sporting event in Leon County.

The weekend ran in a fixed order. The Tallahassee Democrat's 2016 preview listed the schedule as Friday: Dressage, Saturday: Cross Country, Sunday: Stadium Jumping, with tickets at $15 daily and $40 for a three-day pass. Dressage is the precise arena test, stadium jumping the final round of fences, and cross-country the long gallop over fixed obstacles through the Phipps woods.

The Red Hills cross-country track was a serious piece of course design. Tallahassee Magazine described the course as more than 2 miles long, with as many as 40 obstacles, and said the competition kicked off the United States Eventing Association Gold Cup Series each year. The Democrat's 2014 preview reported that the sixteenth trials would feature an exciting new 3,611 meter course designed to rival any in the nation. In 2016 the paper called Red Hills the first stop of the United States Eventing Association Gold Cup series, and noted that the three-day event is a qualifier for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The land shaped the course. Phipps Park is rolling, wooded Red Hills country rather than an open showground, and the 2016 course designer told the Democrat that a lot of it is through trees and that the park is not a big, open park. Course builders added new fences and water features over the years so that crowds standing along the ropes in the Lake Jackson woods could see several jumps from one spot.

The trials could only happen in Tallahassee because of a land deal two decades earlier. The City of Tallahassee parks page records that the water management district, the city and the Phipps family landowner worked together to buy the property in October 1992, a 670-acre spread along the east side of Lake Jackson. The city took title to 162 acres outright, the piece holding the Meadows Soccer Complex on Millers Landing Road and the Meridian Park ball fields, and the park entrance today is at 4600 North Meridian Road.

The larger share went to the water agency. The Northwest Florida Water Management District states that the District acquired more than 500 acres of land within Elinor-Klapp Phipps Park in 1992, and that the land was bought to protect Lake Jackson, which the district lists as an Aquatic Preserve, an Outstanding Florida Water and a SWIM priority watershed. The district and the city manage the park together. That split ownership explains why an eventing course could stretch across woods that were never a city ball field.

That shared ownership is why the 2014 course move mattered. The Democrat reported that the new XC course built on Northwest Water Management District property through a partnership with the City of Tallahassee drew strong early entries, and Tallahassee Magazine had flagged in January 2013 that the new course is located on property owned by the Northwest Florida Water Management District. The Red Hills organizers, a volunteer board, never owned the ground; the course sat on public land held by the city and the water management district.

The park itself is the other half of the story. Visit Tallahassee describes the park as Tallahassee’s most expansive and wild urban park, with magnolias, massive tulip poplars, streams and seven miles of trails.

By the 2010s Red Hills was one of the largest annual sporting draws in Leon County. The Democrat counted almost 200 entries from 23 states for the 2014 event, then reported in 2016 that there were 238 entries (17 more than last year) representing North America, South America and Europe. Tallahassee Magazine wrote that more than 220 competitors from 11 countries converge for the event, which offers a total of $54,000 in prize monies.

The money that mattered to Tallahassee was visitor spending. The Democrat reported in 2022 that out-of-county riders, entourages, spectators, officials, sponsors and vendors helped fuel an economic impact of about $5 million, and that people traveling to Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park for the event spend about 6,450 nights in total at local hotels. Both Visit Tallahassee and the Leon County Tourist Development helped fund the event, and the trials partnered with the City of Tallahassee to use the park.

The labor came from residents. WFSU reported that a faithful army of some 500 volunteers made it all happen across the event's 25 years, and city parks and recreation staff, by the city's own account in 2022, dedicated thousands of hours to help grow a local event into a premier, international equestrian competition. Timing helped too: the Democrat noted the March date was one of the first stops after the winter season for horse owners on their way back up north from Ocala, so Tallahassee caught riders as they left their winter base in Marion County.

Tourism officials treated the trials as a showcase. In January 2013 Tallahassee Magazine reported that the year's event would salute the Viva Florida 500 commemoration of Spanish arrival in Florida, with the Five Flags of Florida flying over the grounds and a planned parade of breeds featuring the Florida Cracker Horse. The executive director of Visit Tallahassee told the magazine that the trials were a signature event for Tallahassee and generated national and international publicity for Leon County tourism.

The event had survived one near miss. In 2009 the organizers canceled that year's trials, scheduled for March 13 to 15, because fundraising had dried up in the recession. Tallahassee Magazine reported that only 88 horses had been entered in the competition when the board needed 200 entries to cover its bills, which included a $25,000 deposit for tents and $20,000 for stables. Then-Mayor John Marks called the cancellation regrettable, and the trials returned the next year.

The 2022 ending came from the sport's national calendar rather than local support. WFSU reported that the decision came after the national sanctioning body decided to move toward larger, more profitable events. The Tallahassee Democrat quoted the board's announcement that The USEF has scheduled the first Four Star of the season on top of Red Hills' date, which threatened the entry numbers the event depended on. The board said it would no longer host the event because of escalating costs, new requirements and losing a spot on the competition's division calendar.

The board tried to hold on. According to the Democrat, Red Hills attorneys filed motions against the United States Equestrian Federation that were dismissed, and the federation refused to let the event skip 2023 while keeping its calendar dates for 2024 through 2027. With the calendar set years ahead, organizers described the decision as final. The March 2022 trials, held with spectators back after the COVID-reduced 2021 edition, were the last.

As of October 2026 the park that hosted the trials remains public land managed by the City of Tallahassee's Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Affairs department together with the water management district. The city describes most of the property, more than 600 acres, as reserved for quiet recreation and nature education rather than ball fields, and Visit Tallahassee lists seven miles of trails which includes the bluebird trail housing 30 bluebird boxes. The Meadows Soccer Complex still serves youth and adult soccer on the Millers Landing Road side.

Horses have not disappeared from the property. The water management district lists picnicking, hiking, biking, horseback riding and wildlife viewing at its Phipps tract, and says the park offers more than 10 miles of multi-use trails (hiking, biking, equestrian) in addition to the hiking trails. The district also notes ongoing prescribed burns, pine thinning and native plantings meant to restore habitat along the Lake Jackson shore, the same woods that once framed the cross-country fences.

For Tallahassee residents who walked the cross-country course on a March Saturday, the trails along the Lake Jackson shore are the clearest remaining trace of Red Hills. No replacement international eventing competition at Phipps Park has been documented in the sources reviewed for this page; the Democrat's 2022 coverage quoted riders who saw the loss as one fewer place in the region to expose young horses to big crowds.