August 19, 2016 
USHJA course designer Bobby Murphy has turned the Kentucky Horse Park into his very own sandbox, and he’s invited the country’s top riders to come play in it.
The course Murphy has put together for this weekend’s USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship features an unprecedented array of thematic sand sculptures incorporated into several jumps.
Murphy, no stranger to hunter course innovation, says It took about 125 tons of sand to complete the sculptures, which were done by Team Sandtastic. From the USHJA ribbon, to a portrait of American Pharoah and scenes like foxes and hounds and a bourbon drinking beaver, each sculpture was painstakingly hand-crafted just for this event.
We can all agree these are incredible works of art. But, what will the horses think of them? We’ll find out this weekend.
In the meantime, enjoy this time lapse video on how the whole thing came together. It’s just a bit more complicated than the ol’ plastic shovel and bucket method.
