If you’ve lived in New Orleans for longer than 12 months, there’s a good chance someone has asked you if you’re going to the track for Thanksgiving.
If you’ve never heard that question, well, “The Track” is the Fair Grounds racetrack in Mid City. They’ve been celebrating opening day of the horse-racing season there on Thanksgiving Day since 1892.
124 years later, in 2019, Ingrid Anderson – a New Orleans makeup artist, designer, and all-around creative person – came up with an alternative event. She called it Human Horse Races. Initially it was for people who appreciate local tradition, but aren’t so keen on how racehorses are treated.
Ingrid Anderson, Founder of Human Horse Races, GNO Social Arts Network, makeup artist, designer, and all-around creative person. If you’re wondering where Ingrid found this outfit, she made it! For more on that aspect of Ingrid’s life check out her ChalMET Gala: New Orleans’ spin on the Met Gala.
Human Horse Races has all the style and excitement of opening day at The Track, except at the Human Horse Races, races are run by humans – wearing horse heads. At the premiere event, Ingrid expected – if all her friends came – she’d have a maximum of 75 people. 300 people showed up. That was an early indication of how things were going to go.
Today, Human Horse Races attracts thousands of people, some of whom also go to the traditional Thanksgiving race day at the track.
If Ingrid has dreams of turning Human Horse Races into a major mainstream event, or growing it beyond New Orleans, she’s sitting across the table from the person she needs to meet: Lisa LaCour.
Lisa LaCour, Founder and CEO of The Vault Collective, a business strategy consultancy that employs Lisa’s experiences outside of New Orleans that range from working with The Beastie Boys to AOL
Lisa is Founder and CEO of The Vault Collective, a business strategy company based in New Orleans. The company draws on Lisa’s experience as a business strategist for companies like AOL, Comcast, Mattel, MGM, and Madison Square Garden.
Here in New Orleans, among others, Lisa has worked with Idea Village, Wristbnd, and The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University.
Peter Ricchiuti, Lisa LaCour, Ingrid Anderson, Out to Lunch at Columns on St Charles Avenue in Uptown New Orleans
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But, in business, as in other aspects of life, although the straight line from A to B might be the most obvious, it’s not the most fun. And often not the most profitable.
Without mixing too many metaphors, being able to see around the corner and find a way for the destination to become the journey is a particular talent. It’s called “creativity” and when it’s applied to business by talented people like Ingrid and Lisa, it combines and transforms the demanding necessity of financial enrichment into the rewarding enrichment of life itself.
Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. Photos by Jill Lafleur.
