Joan Irvine Smith Wants Estate to Be a Horse-Jumping Capital
Ask Joan Irvine Smith how she wants to be identified, and she gives you body language--a silent, braid-tossing shrug. Heiress? Horsewoman? Businesswoman?
The first two are are met with head-shaking silence. The third brings a cool-eyed “maybe.”
You remember that she admires, perhaps even identifies with, actress Katharine Hepburn. “A Katharine Hepburn-esque businesswoman?”
Her iridescent pink, lipsticked mouth breaks into a wide smile. “There ya go,” she says, laughing.
Joan Irvine Smith, a Katharine Hepburn-esque businesswoman, took time off from her ongoing legal battle with the Irvine Co. (over the difference between hers and Irvine Co. owner Donald L. Bren’s valuation of company stock) recently to play hostess to participants in a horse-jumping clinic at the Oaks, Smith’s 20-acre stable complex in San Juan Capistrano.
The granddaughter of the founder of the Irvine Co. wore a mocha cardigan sweater with matching skirt, brown loafers and Joy perfume splashed “everywhere--if you’re gonna be around horses, you gotta cover up the horsy smell.”
Smith, 53, moved among guests seated on her red geranium-potted patio, chatting sparely, eyes glued on international trainer George Morris. “Left rein, left rein!” Morris instructed. “Incline position! Forward! Close to your saddle. Just a little out of that saddle.”
For three hours, nine county-area students heeded Morris’ scrutinizing tutelage in a ring set with jumps. Some came to further jumping careers, others to hone a hobby. “It’s not only an educational experience,” said Jan Smith, Morris’ West Coast coordinator. “It’s a great motivator. Clinics give horse jumpers the chance to renew basics and revitalize interest.”
Afterward, Morris, pupils and spectators convened with Smith for a cold buffet in the Oaks’ pine-paneled ranch house.
Smith said she would like to see the Oaks become the open jumping capital of the world, “at least the United States. Right now, the closest thing is Spruce Meadows in Canada.”
Morris agreed. “You see the quality of the Oaks (with its floral profusion and English-riding-country landscape) at Spruce Meadows and in Europe. But nowhere else in the United States.”
For the jumper, the sport holds a living-on-the-edge excitement, said Smith, who showed and jumped horses for 40 years. “It’s a thrill. Very high risk. For the spectator it’s exciting, too. Some people come for the chance to see someone spill.”
Smith will give Orange County’s horsy set another chance to watch open jumping competition when she and horse trainer Jimmy Kohn present their second annual Oaks Classic--a Grand Prix jumping competition with a $70,000 purse--May 29-31. “I like to have people come here and feel like they’re abroad,” said Smith, eyes scanning her movie-set landscape. “I want them to see jumping in a beautiful environment. There isn’t a horse-jumping event in this country that can touch our classic.”
