Badminton Horse Trials 2017
The world class, Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials three day event is a date in your social calendar for all you horse lovers out there not to be missed. It always takes place in April or May of each year. It is held on the 1500 acre Badminton Park estate, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire. The residence of the Duke of Beaufort.
The main events are the dressage which is always held on Friday, the cross country on Saturday with the grand finale which is the show jumping on the Sunday.
With fine weather forecast we went to watch the cross country and what a fantastic day out we had. We managed to get parked up easily, the organisation is very good and prior to the event starting embarked on a spot of retail therapy. After all, who can make it past the Joules Clothing shop without spending a few Pounds! Over the years, the trade stand area has grown in size and now resembles a miniature village. Country attire, food, drink, arts, crafts, saddlery & tack, farm vehicles and horse boxes are all on sale.
The cross country course this year was designed for the first time by Eric Winter. Comprising of twenty nine fences he did an amazing job to test both horse & rider’s speed and technical ability.
With our picnic in tow, we walked the whole course stopping at each fence to see a horse and rider jump. We haven’t been for a few years and it was great to see all of my international heroes again, Andrew Nicholson (who won this year), Mark Todd, Andrew Hoy are amongst my favourites! The power of the top class horses as they gallop by is just exhilarating. The only way I can describe standing so close to all the action is that it is like watching the Grand Prix equivalent in the horse world.
Here are some of our photographs from the day. As you will see we spotted so many different varieties of dogs out walking the course with their owners. Badminton is just a great place to see all sorts of things.