Burghley Horse Trials

Waking up it was wet, wet, wet outside so we weren't sure what the day would hold when we were going to an outdoor event.  However hard it had rained overnight though, it managed to rain itself out and we ended up with a dry day that got warmer and warmer as it progressed.  We set off to Burghley around 9am and took the back roads in and across the fields of the estate. We are still amazed by the numbers of people that are at events. Apparently 160,000 people go to the horse trials over a 4 day period so its pretty busy.  We went on Saturday which is the cross country event day so there would have been around 40,000 people there.  It is quite spectacular. 
The event itself doesn't start till 11am but prior to that everyone heads to the shops and the score boards. Serious money is spent there!! It was fabulous to look at and very tempting.... you could buy anything related to horses  from clothing, boots, hats, to horse equipment and feed, horse trailers, and then there was everything unrelated but that would make you look fabulous anyway, Rolex watches, Aga ovens (go figure - "I brought my Aga at Burghley"), designer jewellery, cashmere clothing, leather everything and the list went on. I think my favourite thing was the alpaca scarves in the most beautiful colours and the finest weave.  I should have taken a few more shots of the fashion for the day, often involving tweed, hunter boots and sleeveless quilted vests.  There were some fabulous suits, but we couldn't choose which one suited His lordship the best.
Next to the shopping were the food outlets and oh my, there was some amazing goodies there. Massive wheels of cheese, amazing pies filled with wonderful concoctions, juices, cakes, fudges, the biggest meringues you have EVER seen (yes we did share one and it was delicious but oh so sweet). I settled on paella and David had a wonderful pie with mash to warm us up for the start of the event.
 Basically we walked the course and it took us the rest of the day. The course is about 6.5km long, up and down hills, with a couple of areas with big screen TV's to watch the action. I am so glad I have watched this all on TV before coming because when you are on the course you only see one rider for no more than about 20 seconds as they appear down the track, leap what jump or jumps are there and then thunder past you. It is all thrilling, but you then have to wait another 5 minutes for the next horse and rider.  We sat down by one of the big screens and it was great to see the rider coming through the preceding jumps and then heading onto the next ones.

 The things that struck me most was that these were some seriously courageous people riding these horses, the horses are all big but some of them are MASSIVE.  A couple fell off and one rode past with a bloody nose and then another one nearly lost it right in front of us and managed to hang onto the horse's neck and drag himself back on. Real adrenaline pumping action.
We walked along an avenue with the plaques of past winners.  It was very cool to see the Kiwi riders in there and particularly Mark Todd who is around 60 and was still competing that day - we gave him a good old Kiwi cheer as he went past. He is an amazing athlete to have competed at the top level of his sport for 25 years or more. There are not many sports that you can do that.
 
We had a great day, we were thoroughly exhausted at the end but we had a Pimms to sustain us half way round so it was all very manageable.