The third Saturday in October has a sound in Far Hills. Tailgate tents going up on Thursday. Trailers on Route 202. The low hum of a borough of roughly 900 people preparing to host tens of thousands of guests on a working farm. If you live here, you already know the choreography. What is worth knowing is why the 2026 running looks different from the ones you have been to before, and why the difference is not on the racecourse.
The short version: The Hunt has always been a fundraiser wearing a steeplechase costume. In 2026, the seam between the two is more visible than it has been in years.
The Number That Reframes The Day
Steeplechase purses are usually a background detail for spectators. This year they are the story. The event will feature $775,000 in purse money, the largest prize total in this year's steeplechase circuit. For context, the 103rd running in 2024 carried roughly $700,000 in purses, and Snap Decision took the American Grand National that October. A $75,000 jump in a single cycle is not a rounding error in this sport.
The reason to care as a resident is not the racing economics. It is what a bigger purse implies about the field. Larger purses draw better horses, which draws more sponsorship, which funds the beneficiary list. That list is the point. The Far Hills Race Meeting Association has directed more than $22 million in donations to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset over the decades, and in 2025 announced an additional $1.25 million commitment to the Steeplechase Cancer Center's Far Hills Race Meeting Association Oncology Patient Assistance Fund, which supports patients facing financial hardship.
Read those two paragraphs together and the shape of the day changes. The tailgate is the fundraiser. The purse is the marketing that keeps the fundraiser viable. The horses are the reason forty thousand people show up on a hillside in October to write checks.
What's Actually New This Year
If you went to The Hunt in 2024 and skipped 2025, here is what shifted.
The America 250 anthem contest. For 2026, the FHRMA opened its national anthem performance to a public competition tied to the country's semiquincentennial. The association is accepting entries for its "Oh, Say Can You Sing?" contest, offering one winner the chance to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" in front of tens of thousands of racegoers at the 105th running of The Hunt on October 17th at Moorland Farm, open to singers ages 16 and older from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The framing of the contest is worth reading closely. Applicants were asked to submit in honor of their own cancer fight, a family member or loved one currently battling the disease, someone who has overcome it, or in memoriam, with finalists invited to a live performance on June 25th at the Steeplechase Cancer Center at RWJUH Somerset in Somerville.
This is a small programming choice that says something loud. The anthem is no longer a ceremonial checkbox. It is the beneficiary story compressed into two minutes at the start of the day.
The 105th running as a milestone year. The 105th Far Hills Race Meeting takes place on Saturday, October 17, 2026. The number is worth pausing on. The races were suspended during World War II and again in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Very few sporting events in the state can claim that continuity. It is not a coincidence that the borough's cultural identity leans so heavily on it.
A tighter beneficiary focus on oncology. Between the $1.25 million oncology patient assistance commitment and the anthem contest's cancer-survivor eligibility, the 2026 edition is essentially asking racegoers to treat the day as an oncology fundraiser first. Through RWJUH Somerset's partnership with Rutgers Cancer Institute, the state's only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, patients can access leading-edge treatment options, including clinical trials. If you have driven past the Steeplechase Cancer Center building in Somerville and wondered why it carries that name, this is the through line.
The Race Card Itself, In Plain Terms
For residents who host out-of-town guests and get asked "so what actually happens out there," a short reference:
- Where: Moorland Farm, a grass racecourse in Far Hills.
- Format: Seven races averaging 2.5 miles in length, with each race featuring about ten to fourteen hurdles measuring less than three feet tall, and 65 to 70 thoroughbred horses participating throughout the day.
- Featured race: The Grade 1 American Grand National, one of the most prominent steeplechase races in the United States.
- Circuit: Organized by the Far Hills Race Meeting Association as part of the National Steeplechase Association circuit.
- Wagering: A significant development came in 2018 with the introduction of pari-mutuel wagering, bringing the event in line with other major horse racing venues in the United States.
The hurdles being under three feet is the detail that tends to surprise newcomers. This is not the Grand National at Aintree. It is a fast, tight, spectator-friendly variant designed to keep the field visible from the hillsides.
The Rhythm Of The Week Around It
If you have lived in the borough or in the surrounding acreage in Bedminster and Peapack for a few Octobers, you know that race day is only the loudest hour of a longer week. Setup begins mid-week. Tailgate spot holders start arriving with tents, tables, and multi-generational logistics that would embarrass a wedding planner. Restaurants and caterers in the surrounding area book out. The Route 202 corridor thickens by Friday afternoon.
Two practical notes for residents in 2026:
The race runs rain or shine. Races will run rain or shine. Every year a handful of newer residents assume a soggy forecast means a postponement. It does not. Plan the guest list accordingly.
Livestream is a real option. The Far Hills steeplechase race is streamed live. If you have hosted three years running and want a quiet Saturday at home this time, that is a legitimate way to still be part of the day. The tailgate absolutism can be politely declined.
The quieter week matters for a different reason too. Vendors, hospitality staff, and part-time workers who serve the event live throughout Somerset and southern Morris counties. When 30,000-plus people descend on a 5-square-mile borough for a day, the ripple is regional. The rolling hills of Moorland Farm are home to the country's premier steeplechase race, and on October 17th, the event will celebrate its 105th year running, with over 30,000 people expected to attend.
Why This All Matters If You Live Here
Far Hills is a small borough with a large gravitational pull for one Saturday a year. The tension between those two facts is what gives the town its character the other 364 days. The equestrian land use, the fieldstone walls, the horse crossings, the pace of traffic on 202: none of that is decorative. It exists because a critical mass of the borough's identity is organized around one working farm and one day.
The 2026 edition makes the underlying civic bargain unusually legible. A borough with roughly 900 residents hosts one of the largest steeplechase gatherings in the country, and in exchange, a regional cancer center in Somerville is meaningfully funded. Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty officially announced this year's lineup at another festival, but the more consequential local announcement was the one that came from the FHRMA in May: an anthem contest, an oncology fund, and a $75,000 bump in the day's purses.
If you are new to the area, treat the third Saturday in October as the day the borough shows you what it is for. If you have been here a decade, this is the year to reread the beneficiary list before you build your tailgate menu. The horses are the reason people come. They are not the reason the day exists.
For residents thinking about how this land, this event, and this stretch of Somerset County fit into a longer term real estate plan, Megan Bonanno at Kienlen Lattmann Sotheby's International Realty is glad to talk through what estate and country properties in Far Hills, Peapack-Gladstone, and Bedminster are actually doing right now. Request Your Free Home Valuation when you are ready.
