Children race with stick horses on the grass course during a pause between races at Nashville’s Iroquois Steeplechase, in Belle Meade, May 2018.

A Nashville annual rite of passage welcoming summer, it is a throwback to a simpler time. Though attendees adorn themselves in grand Southern pomp and circumstance–it is a fashion show of elaborate hats and dresses and summer suits–it is more a time of nostalgia with the bringing out of old family recipes for summer picnic, family drink concoctions, and more than anything else a time to play, even to shed the shoes and go barefoot.

And at play the children excel, though the adults do a pretty good job of it too–at least on this day.