CAMDEN — Caroline Reames is 45 years old. She has been to 44 runnings of the Carolina Cup.

As a child, she came with her parents to a coveted space along the racetrack. “We were lucky,” she says. “Somebody passed away, and we were able to move up.”

When she was 12, she rode in a friend’s lime-green Packard with the top down, the same Packard buffed and shining on the front row at the Springdale Race Course on Saturday.

In college, she stayed in the beer-soaked infield. “You always remember coming to the infield,” she says, leaning close. “But you don’t remember leaving.”

Now she comes to the Cup as a boutique owner, spotting her shop’s designer straw hats (with their price tag of $165-$350) topping spring’s pinks and taupes.

She comes as a wife, helping host her husband Gil’s catered business party.

She comes as a daughter, kissing old friends at her parents’ tailgate.

And Reames comes as a mother, setting her 13-year-old daughter Mary free to roam with her friends. “Hey Mary,” she calls, bobbing her hand quickly as her daughter passes by. “Hey Mom,” says Mary, looking down and speeding up.

Caroline Reames doesn’t know all 65,000 people at the Carolina Cup, but a stroll through Saturday’s setup proved she knows a lot of them.

The Cup, Camden’s premier social event, is an elaborate set of hierarchies within hierarchies. Reames negotiates them fluidly, a compliment here, a kiss there, a smoothly arranged exit to follow.

“Ooh, there’s the horse whisperer,” she says, racing off to see Bruce Anderson, who trains horses without reins or whips.

They talk briefly, and she’s on to the next friend, the next tent.

She reaches out to stop Lloyd Wilcox, whom she last saw at a ball in Charleston. “That’s my man,” she said. “You are the best dancer on the planet.”

She sees friend Kimberlee Miller, a fellow fox-hunter who explains that the day is all about horsemanship. “No it’s not,” Reames says. “It’s about fun.”

“She’s the party person,” Julianne Rickenbacker says. “She knows where to go to have fun.”

‘IT’S REALLY A BIG COCKTAIL PARTY’

The Cup itself actually is seven races, a mix of steeplechases and flats, featuring local and out-of-town horses.

Some people watch the races. “But it’s really a big cocktail party,” says Mary Coxe, Reames’ mother. Like her daughter, Coxe herself has missed only one race. Both missed because of illness.

Reames owns four horses: One is a pony, one is retired, and two are for fox-hunting.

Reames doesn’t race her horses, but she knows the people who do - men like Paul Fout, perched on the front row, near the Packard and the grandstand.

“You win some, you lose some,” Fout says. “But if you don’t get a thrill out of it, you shouldn’t be in it.”

JUST BREEZING THROUGH

The Springdale Race Course is divided for Carolina Cup day into four areas: the grandstand, with the owners and trainers; the corporate tents, for sponsors; the front row and boxholder parking, by the track; and the infield, for everyone else.

Every level is coded, with tickets, buttons and passes required. The most important thing: Blue ribbons take you everywhere - to the best parties and, most important, the best potties.

Reames breezes through it all.

She wears a made-to-order, pink-patterned jacket from her Studio W boutique. “There’s nothing better than being around nice people and beautiful things.”

She recommends cropped pants and sandals over dresses and high heels: “You’d have blisters in five minutes.”

Although she long since has moved to the land of fresh flowers and white wine, she still enjoys a quick trip through the infield, listening to the music and checking out the fashion.

She’ll even brave College Park, an area reserved for students and the wildest place to be on a day built around parties. “If you’re there after age 22 or so,” Reames says, “you’re on a slippery slope.”

Hip-hop blasts from car speakers. Guys wear seersucker suits with flip-flops. Girls wear strapless sundresses or even J.Lo glam, with dresses cut down to the navel.

“You see a little bit of everything down here,” she says. “You don’t see it up there,” gesturing toward the grandstand, “but you do down here.”

Reames lets her daughter walk through College Park (“I have to trust her, right?”). But Mom is quick to stroll through, hug a few friends on the outskirts, and head back to home base.

It’s hot, it’s past noon and she’s thirsty. “Where’s our tent, y’all? I’m ready for a drinky-winky.”

The cup’s unofficial beverage? Bloody Mary. Runner-up? Vodka-cranberry, Reames’ preferred cocktail.

Reames walks fast but travels slow, as she stops every few steps to greet someone she knows. She blows by no one. Kids from her street. Guys doing the catering. Friends of her parents.

She’s asked 10 times, “Where’s your hat?” Reames has to admit it: She sold them all.

Her friend and “Ya-Ya” sister Clare Iuiyoob bought one, black and tan with a brim that dips almost to her eyes. “I feel like Audrey Hepburn,” she says.

‘THE WEATHER IS EVERYTHING’

At most stops, the weather is a staple of conversation. Rain has ruined many a Carolina Cup.

Family friend Mark Buyckruined a tan suit at a race in the 1960s. “I was wearing a madras raincoat,” Buyck says. “Can you believe they made such a thing?”

Saturday’s weather was a sunny 80 degrees, with a slight breeze. “The weather is everything,” Reames says. “If it weren’t beautiful, we wouldn’t be having fun.”

Reames watches some of the races from the grandstand; her neighbors’ horse, Captain of Industry, won the first race.

She watches some from the Morgan Stanley tent, where she talks with her husband’s co-workers and clients, drinking wine and eating marinated mushrooms and shrimp cocktail.

She watches some races with her parents and family friends, along the front row.

“You’ve got your horse people, you’ve got your business-related people, your social friends, your family,” she says. “Everybody comes.

“It’s a good crowd, and it’s a great day.”

Reach Bauerlein at (803) 771-8485 or vbauerlein@thestate.com.