The 2010 Burghley Horse Trials is now underway! The event is held in the beautiful parkland that surrounds Burghley House which is widely acknowledged to be the finest Elizabethan stately home in England. Along with Badminton and Blenheim, Burghley House provides the most spectacular backdrop for any Horse Trials in the world and is located near the beautiful old town of Stamford. It would be worth visiting the Horse Trials just to pop into The George at Stamford for dinner in their oak pannelled dining room or stay overnight in a four-poster bed - in fact that's exactly what I'll be doing when I head home to England for a few weeks after the WEG. But for now, back to the horses......! The Brits on their home turf have taken the lead after the first day of dressage with veteran Mary King on Apache Sauce taking the lead on 44.8 followed by fellow WEG team member William Fox-Pitt on Macchiato on 46.8. Mary and William seem to be trying to put all of their errors behind them before WEG as both of them incurred penalties in the test - Mary had an error of course and William for taking too long to enter the arena! Neither of these riders could be thought to be overawed by the occasion as William has won this event five times - in 1994, 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and Mary won in 1996 and is one of legends of the sport. It just shows that it can happen to anyone but, as William points out in the YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr0YuDGjU5k), it could prove to be his downfall by the time Sunday rolls around. In 2009 Australian riders did well at this event. Aussie WEG squad members Sam Griffiths was 3rd and Paul Tapner 6th. Paul was due to compete at Burghley this year on his other two top horses, Stormhill Michael and Kilfinnie II (how great it must be to have a strong team of 4* horses) but unfortunately it appears that both horses have minor injuries and won't be competing and neither will poor Bill Levett who has had a bad time of it recently with his main horses being out of action. Hopefully all horses will be back in action soon with Bill will back on the road to London 2012 and Paul will of course be on the plane for Kentucky! So I believe that the only Aussie actually competing ( as opposed to having entered) is Clayton Fredericks on the 12 year old bay mare, Be My Guest II. His test is on Friday at 2:30pm (England time) - you can follow all of the action live and free on Burghley TV (http://www.burghley.tv/?BH) and there is archived footage available each day.
