KENT — Sunday’s drenching rain put a damper on the Kent Horse Trials but didn’t stop the majority of the intrepid competitors. Show secretary Erin Kehan said they went into the weekend with 121 entries, started the day with 98 entries and wrapped up the last phase of cross-country with 79 teams. At mid-morning the parking area was nearly full with horse trailers. Competitors getting ready to ride were turned out head to toe in rain gear and the requisite Wellies. But the spectator benches at the side of the show ring were virtually empty. It seemed only stalwart parents, coaches and friends hung on the rail long enough to cheer on their favorite horse and rider before taking refuge from the rain. The horse trials, which took place at the Kent School riding facility on the top of Skiff Mountain, were for beginner novice, novice and training riders. The sport of eventing challenges a horse and rider team in three different disciplines: dressage, show jumping and cross-country jumping. Maude Quinn, 14, of Salisbury, riding her horse, Calypso’s Dream, placed fourth in the novice rider division. Her trainer, Sharyn Cataldo-Antico of Town Hill Farm in Lakeville, said it was her very first novice event and she performed her dressage phase in a “pouring rain but then it lightened up a bit.”This weekend, Riga Meadow Equestrian Center will hold a combined test at its facility at 339 Undermountain Road in Salisbury on Saturday, May 21. A combined test is often considered a warm-up to a horse trials as it has two of the three components. Horse-and-rider teams will compete in dressage and show-jumping. Riders can chose from four levels of competition: beginner novice, novice, training and prelim. As with many sporting events, the activity is geared as much toward spectators as competitors. They are still accepting entries.Riga Meadow will hold its horse trials Sunday, July 17. Also upcoming in the area, Weatogue Stables on Weatogue Road in Salisbury will hold its first schooling dressage show of the season on Sunday, June 26. Both Kent and Riga Meadow Equestrian Center are sanctioned events by the United States Eventing Association and fall within Area One. For more information about other horse trials, combined tests and schooling shows in the area go to www.area1usea.org.For more information on Riga Meadow’s upcoming events, go to www.rigameadow.com. For information about Weatogue Stable shows, call 860-824-7908.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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