The Blenheim Horse Trials start today! This blog about eventing and the riders featured in An Eventful Life seems to be turning into Deb's Eventing Travel Guide (it's going to get worse in the next few weeks when I'm actually on the road in Kentucky!) but I can't resist when some of the best events in the world are held in such great places. Take Blenheim for instance. Several years ago I dragged my non-horsey husband there (under protest) for the dressage day as we were home in England. He put up with watching some dressage and doing the course walk with Capt. Mark Phillips but was compensated by a guided tour of Blenheim Palace and lunch in the lovely village of Woodstock. Well worth visiting even if you're not into horses. Blenheim Palace is of course the birthplace of Winston Churchill (and he's buried nearby if you want to do the birth to death bit!) and if the weather is good, jut a great place for a picnic and to watch the cross country. Fingers crossed for the weather this weekend - it seemed to be beautiful at Burghley last weekend so that may have been the English summer. This weekend Aussie Team Fredericks will be competing at Blenheim - Clayton in the CCI3* on Brookleigh and Mr Miller 2, with Lucinda on Prada. Brookleigh is owned by Nikki Brooks of Brookleigh Estate, WA, who has travelled to England to watch her horse run and will no doubt enjoy all of the above and the trade stands! Nikki is also the long time supporter of Sonja Johnson who talks all about how Nikki and her mother Olga (who sadly died in June whilst Sonja was competing at the Melbourne 3DE on one of their horses) in the book An Eventful Life. Matt Ryan will also be competing but no longer under the Aussie flag despite the fact that the list of competitors have an Australian flag next to his name (unless he's changed back again!) You can follow the results at http://www.blenheim-horse.co.uk but unfortunately no live video for this one - I'll see if I can track one down anywhere else and let you know. Just to let those people waiting for the photos of Cantering Towards Kentucky night - sorry, we had a few technical hitches but should be up later today and also coming is a video of the highlights of Sydney 3DE. I will keep you posted here, on Facebook and Twitter so keep following!
