Gilded Age Horseback Dining

The guests were notified to arrive at Sherry's at eight o'clock the next day, their dress code jodhpurs, boots, and formal jackets.  
—Public domain image of the famous stag party on horseback 

A BLACK-TIE DINNER ON HORSEBACK

Millionaire C. K. G. Billings, a New York sportsman and “regular fellow,” became president of the exclusive New York Riding Club in the autumn of 1900 and issued invitations to a stag dinner for members at his medieval castle on Riverside Drive. Alas, the newspapers published rumors of the upcoming dinner, and the irked Billings appealed to restaurateur Louis Sherry. “This notoriety is driving me mad!” he exclaimed. “Reporters are bothering the life out of me. . . . What can we do about it?”

“Leave it to me,” replied Sherry. “Give me carte blanche, and we'll fool the papers as they've never been fooled before.” The guests were notified to arrive at Sherry's at eight o'clock the next day, their dress code jodhpurs, boots, and formal jackets. 

On arrival at Sherry’s at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Fourth Street, they found Sherry’s ballroom converted to a twilight woodland garden where a circle of fine horses were hitched, each one saddled and ready to be mounted. (The horses were brought up earlier on a freight elevator.) The waiters, dressed as grooms in scarlet coats and white breeches, scurried about to serve each guest on a tray affixed to his saddle. 

Two saddle-bags hung from each horse’s flanks, the contents iced champagne to be sipped from rubber tubes. The guests feasted on trout with green sauce. Each horse was provided with a feedbag of oats to chomp on as well. Total cost: about $50,000 (or $1.28 million in today's dollars). — From “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?,” 2018

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