Tuesday 8 April 2014

Belton Horse Trials

Saturday saw us at our local National Trust property Belton House who were staging their annual Horse Trials.  Apparently this is the earliest yearly event in the three day eventing world and provides a lead in to future horse trials at Burghley and Badminton.  For the first time National Trust members, like us, were allowed in free which was very gratifying.  We are not particularly horsey but I do like seeing the show jumping and enjoy the atmosphere these events generate.


We were blessed with a mostly dry but blowy day and it was interesting to see Belton with a different scene from the usual Sunday cricket.


The paparazzi were being papped:


and the amateur paps were busy too!  The guy standing next to my DH had the biggest telephoto lens on his camera and was rapidly firing away as the horses came over the jumps but DH was happy to get his low angles.

There were some very famous riders and horses participating including Olympic gold medallist Sir Mark Todd and world number one William Fox Pitt who we saw set off and finish in the cross country course.


This very smart and poised young lady is Dani Evans, an intermediate rider who is representing Great Britain for the second year at the FEI Nations Cup.  Her beautiful horse is called Smart Time (I think).


There were lots of trade stalls at the Trials but I mostly resisted apart from buying some Oddsox!  My feet will no longer match!  I did fall in love though,


I could have stayed all day with these two beautiful spaniels who would have taken all the fussing I could have given them.  They belonged to one of the stalls selling riding and other boots.  I think they might have noticed if I'd made off with them ;-)  

Since the weekend I've been busy making a quick birthday present for a friend.  Fortunately she doesn't read my blog or facebook page so I can show you what I've made.


I've made these two mug rugs with thermal wadding.  I've decided they're his and hers and added some bling to 'hers'.  Who said I'd made a mistake and was covering it up?!!!  Lies, vicious lies! LOL

Wish us luck tomorrow, DH is having a biopsy, poor thing.  I'm off to watch the Great British Sewing Bee Final to take my mind off it.

7 comments:

imac said...

Bless you Darling
xxx

ju-north said...

Great post Julie. Wishing HI well. Whatever it is I hope he gets it sorted quickly. Thinking of you both. X

Heather said...

Good luck for the biopsy. Great pics as ever. We used to go to Badminton each year and saw Princess Anne ride in after the cross country event. She looked beautiful and immaculate even after all that exertion. One year I pointed the Queen out to our youngest daughter, then about 3 or 4. The weather was windy and showery and the Queen was wearing a mac and headscarf. Daughter was not impressed. A little while later we passed a kiosk with a full length photo of HM in a long gown and wearing the crown. My little daughter piped up in a very scathing tone 'That's the Queen'!

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the test.....what a beautiful place for the trials and so fancy those dappled grays....big time horse stuff. Nice stitching fancy stuff too. xox

Peneller said...

Thinking of you both with fingers crossed. So glad you had a good time at the horse trials.

Linda Vincent said...

Wow...that looks like quite a day out! Great photo opp for Stewart ;-)
Let me know when you get some news....XXX

Linda Vincent said...

Wow, that looks like quite a day out! Great photo opp for Stewart ;-)
Let me know when you have some news.... big hug xxx