Kate Green tips the horses, riders and daunting fences to watch at this weekend’s Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials
The setting
British eventing’s USP is its unmatched country-house settings, of which Lincolnshire’s Burghley is perhaps loveliest of all. The golden-hued Barnack rag stone and fairy-tale turrets of the Elizabethan house built for the politician William Cecil are traditionally bathed in mellow late-summer light and fallow deer graze peacefully among the mature trees in the park landscaped by Capability Brown, whose features, such as the Lion Bridge, are still part of the cross-country course. (The house and gardens will be closed during the trials.)
The history
The horse trials owes its existence to the 6th Marquess of Exeter, an Olympic gold medallist in the 400m hurdles at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games—he was famously played by Nigel Havers in Chariots of Fire.
In 1961, the most important three-day events were Badminton and Harewood, but the latter was blighted by foot-and-mouth disease and the Marquess, whose granddaughter, Miranda Rock, is now custodian of the estate, invited the British Horse Society to transfer the event to Burghley.
Badminton and Burghley, which next year will receive five-star status in the sport, remain easily the most prestigious events in the world; their cross-country days, with crowds of more than 100,000, are two of the most attended sporting occasions in the world.
The illustrious names
Such famed competitors as Richard Meade, Sheila Willcox, Mark Phillips (who designs the cross-country course now), Lucinda Green, Mary King, Pippa Funnell and the reigning Olympic champion Michael Jung are immortalised with plaques in Winners’ Avenue.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin August 29, 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin August 29, 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
