It’s the biggest social event of the fall season for New Jersey’s moneyed horse set. And for the non-horsey friends of New Jersey’s equine gentility.

Not everybody at the 87th annual Far Hills Race Meeting (www.farhillsrace.org) Saturday drove a Rolls, or could tell a filly from a stallion. As riders competed for more than half a million dollars in six steeplechase races, a lot of the 50,000 at Moorland Farms in Far Hills were just having a good time.

As they do every year, revelers set up elaborate tailgates at the grounds, a valley surrounded by Somerset hills clad in the rusty colors of fall. Terrific food and, uhm, libations.

Debbie Brucker and her family got themselves a prime location on the edge of the track, right by the last jump. “We never owned horses,” she said. “We are here for our friends and the social scene.” The Bruckners paid $500 for their spot. Proceeds go to the Somerset Medical Center (www.somersetmedicalcenter.com); its Steeplechase Cancer Center was named in honor of the contributions the Far Hills Race Meeting has made over the years—back when, as Debbie Bruckner remembers, $35 got you a good spot.

Nearby, Bob and Kim Bacso, of Lambertville, had one of the most impressive spreads, with a cheeses and hams and wines set out on table settings you’d expect at an upscale restaurant. For them, it’s been 21 years. They don’t own horses either.

Elsewhere, knots of twenty-somethings walked around carrying bottles of what surely was orange juice, at least in part. Half a dozen middle-aged men stood near the finish line, beer bottles in hand and passing around wads of bills. No gambling allowed, though.

The Far Hills Race Meeting traces its history a fox hunt in 1870. They haven’t chased foxes in a long time. But first-time visitor Karen-Lloyd Jennings remembers riding to the hounds in Cornwall, in her native Great Britain.

“Tailgating is great, very American, we don’t have it in England,” she said. Another difference: “At the end when they caught the fox—it was pretty bloody.”

The only liquid spilled Saturday in Far Hills might have been, uhm, certain libations.