The Fading Glory of America’s (Allegedly) Oldest Sporting Event
No longer a blood sport, modern-day jousting tests riders’ horsemanship and skill as they charge down an 80-yard track and attempt to spear three small metal rings.
There is no blood or screaming. There is only the sound of Ricochet’s hooves as he whisks the fair Maid of Velvet Touch toward her next target ”“ another 1-inch metal ring suspended six feet and eight inches above the ground.
No longer a blood sport, modern-day jousting tests riders’ horsemanship and skill as they charge down an 80-yard track and attempt to spear three small metal rings. They have eight seconds to cover the distance, except those in the novice class, who must simply go faster than a walk. Scoring is simple. Each rider gets three passes. The one who catches the most total rings wins.
“You just have to focus through the ring and not let other things distract you,” says the Lady of Checkertree, pausing between her runs.
Every jouster competes under some gallant, high-born pseudonym. By day, the Maid of Velvet Touch is Chrissy Groah. The Lady of Checkertree is otherwise known as Jenner Brunk. Today the Maid of Velvet Touch’s touch is right. She wins the professional class joust, and a $200 prize.
Novices aim for rings that are one and three fourths inches in diameter. The rings shrink by one fourth of an inch increments for the amateurs, semi-professionals and professionals, who begin with 1-inch rings. If two riders are tied after three passes, they move to a ride-off, sometimes moving down to smaller and smaller rings. At the most difficult extreme, a professional ride-off can involve one fourth inch rings, about the size of a Life Saver.
Though it’s a little-known, low-profile sport, this joust at Natural Chimneys Park in Mount Solon, Va., has deep roots. Today, the Maid of Velvet Touch, the Lady of Checktree and a handful of others are competing in the 193rd Natural Chimneys Joust, making it the longest-running sporting event in the country. (Maybe; see sidebar.)
“It’s very competitive, but it’s very respectful between riders,” says Terry Casady, president of the Natural Chimneys Jousting Club, which sponsors this joust.
In gestures of modern-day chivalry, riders lend each other their lances, and even their horses. Competition is more friendly than fierce. When one jouster tumbles out of the saddle, about a dozen others run (literally) to her aid. Horse and rider return unharmed, a collective sigh of relief goes up from the stands and the tournament resumes.
America’s possible oldest sporting event is a remarkably low-key affair. Perhaps 150 or so people are present, though it’s hard to get a decent count given the wandering back and forth. There are a few vendors, and a few sets of bleachers, partially full, facing the jousting track. Many in attendance seem to be doing more visiting than spectating. It’s all sort of like a very, very small fair, with a bit of jousting off to the side.
‘We used to go to tournaments every weekend, but it’s died so much.’
“People don’t participate like they used to,” says Zula Casady, the 91-year-old matriarch of the Natural Chimneys Joust, stationed behind the cake wheel ($1 buys five chances to win a home-baked cake).
Casady ”“ the grandmother of Terry, the club president ”“ grew up next door. She’s only missed two jousts here. Once, her family was on vacation. She can’t remember details of the other time she missed. Though she never jousted herself, she’s been running the cake wheel for years. Back when, thousands of people would turn out for a day of merriment, in crowds so large it was hard to walk around. There was bingo, rides, games, but those are all gone now. The Natural Chimneys Joust is a shadow of its former self.
The entire sport of jousting has withered of late. Virginia’s five clubs have dwindled to two. The one in West Virginia has gone dormant for lack of participation. Pennsylvania’s club has shriveled. Even in Maryland, where jousting is the state sport, things have been slipping.
“We used to go to tournaments every weekend, but it’s died so much,” says Groah, who is 35 and has been jousting for three decades.
The economy is to blame, she says. It’s expensive to own horses, and to put on events. Terry Casady concurs. Gas prices have been putting a serious hurt on things.
Buck Schuyler, president of the National Jousting Association, tells Modern Farmer that the sport as a whole is down but not out. Aging riders and lean times are big challenges, but long, proud traditions have a way of hanging on.
“It’s an age-old tradition that everybody’s proud of continuing, and I think they’ll continue to do that,” he says.
Another factor working in favor of jousting’s continued existence, Schulyer says, is how it runs deep in families ”“ exemplified by the Casady clan at Natural Chimneys.
The Maid of Velvet Touch, or Chrissy Groah, poses with her lance atop Ricochet, an 18-year-old gelding Tennessee Walker and Arabian mix.
Django’s Guitar bore the Lady of Checkertree to 2nd place finishes in both the amateur and semi-professional classes.
Including Terry, who jousted today as the Knight of 4th T, Zula Casady has 12 grandchildren. The Maid of Velvet Touch is Terry’s cousin and Zula’s granddaughter. Also jousting was The Knight of Little Dawn II, alias C.J. Casady, Groah’s brother and yet another of Zula’s grandchildren. Terry’s late father, Richard, jousted as the Knight of Triple T and is now enshrined in the National Jousting Hall of Fame, as is Richard’s brother Carl, the Knight of Little Dawn, father to C.J. and Chrissy. (Zula herself is also in the Hall of Fame for her general contributions to the sport.) Terry’s youngest daughter, one of the 30 or 35 great-grandchildren Zula has so far, is getting her start as the Maid of 5th T.
Zula now has five great-great-grandchildren, and there will surely be many more. If the newest Casadys have anywhere near the passion for jousting that the current crowd does, the Natural Chimneys Joust should have a few solid decades ahead of it, at least.
In the meantime, the Knight of 4th T says he’s recruiting at places like 4-H clubs, doing everything in his power to bring in some new blood, to restore the sport to its former glory, and to ensure that this obscure event, said to have been going on since James Monroe was president, lives on.
The oldest sporting event?
According to local legend, the Natural Chimneys Joust was first held in 1821, as a way for two suitors to decide who would get to marry a woman named Lucy Ann. The winner got Lucy Ann, the loser did not, and the next year, the folks in the neighborhood decided to do it again. In 2014, they say they’re doing it again for the 193rd time.
There’s not a ton of great documentation floating around out there to corroborate the oral tradition, though. The tale of the inaugural 1821 joust has been rewritten time and again in local newspapers and other accounts, and a 1941 article in the Maryland Historical Magazine mentions the yearly tournament at Natural Chimneys as one of the best-known jousts in the South. Nevertheless, the article identifies an 1840 joust outside of Baltimore as the first to definitively occur in the United States.
In any case, the National Jousting Association sticks with the 1821 narrative, and identifies the Natural Chimneys Joust as the oldest continuously held sporting event in the country. That puts the joust in conflict for that honor with a far higher profile horse-related occurrence ”“- the Kentucky Derby, first held in 1875. Unlike the Natural Chimneys Joust, the Kentucky Derby offers a pretty robust and detailed accounting of its early years.
At this point, it boils down to he-said, she-said. The Kentucky Derby’s press office didn’t respond to multiple inquiries about the matter, and the National Jousting Association is sticking to its guns. Take your pick.
Photographs by Andrew Jenner.
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