Page 45 - The Hunt - Summer 2020

invitation got me more education and training,” Glaccum recalls. After the trials, he found work teaching children to ride
horses. “I didn’t know a lot about numbers, but I could teach four kids to ride for $6 an hour,” he says.
While Glaccum taught, he also rode—longer than anyone else in U.S. history, from 1956 to 2012. After surgery to remove an aneurysm in 2013 cost him his sight in one eye, Glaccum had to stop. Otherwise, he might still be competing now at age 79.
Glaccum and his wife, Bambi, operate Plantation Field Equestrian Events in Unionville, a 300-acre site that hosts competitions drawing some of the nation’s top riders. “Fifty-one
people who’ve ridden here have competed in the Olympics, world championships or Pan American Games,” says Glaccum. “That makes riding here like skiing in Vail, Colorado.”
In the area since 2001, the Glaccums also ran Fair Hill Equestrian in Maryland for 15 years. During their time at Plantation Field, they’ve made substantial improvements to the competition, training and stabling areas, not to mention the infrastructure of the place. Running water and electricity may
not seem like a big deal to some, but to add those amenities to what was basically a hayfield is quite an accomplishment. And the sport’s best competitors have noticed. “It’s the near highest quality
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