Belton Horse Trials

Belton House Horse Trials

I'm a true horse lover now as I've been to my very first horse trials! They were at the magnificent grounds of Belton House. There was loads to see but my favourite was definitely the cross country!

Cross-country

Cross country is a bit like show jumping, except it's not in an arena, it's across the fields and the obstacles you jump over are like fences, tree logs and random things like bags of cement. Anything that's jumpable, really. It was so awesome to watch the horses galloping by and jumping, I wished I was taking part in it!
The fences are spread out over a few miles, so it was quite a walk between the fences so we could get some good photos.

Show-jumping!

The show jumping was really cool too. Some of the jumps were really high, I thought the riders were going to fall off! Fortunately, no one did. Me and dad were having a competition to see who could get the best pictures of the horses jumping! I think it was a draw, though.


There were also lots of kids' Pony Clubs competing against each other. It looked like great fun, but quite dangerous too!

Pony Clubs

There were loads of stalls selling horse tack and supplies and I wanted to look in all of them! I know I don't have a horse yet, but I still enjoy browsing around. There were lots of lovely headcollars with padded, wooly straps with matching lead ropes! I wish I had a horse so I could have bought one.

The best part of the day was that it was actually sunny! There was no rain at all. The wind was a bit chilly, though, but that didn't bother me much. I was having way too much of a good time to feel the cold!

By the time everything was over, my feet were killing! We'd seen just about everything, though, so it was definitely worth it! I'll be going to another horse show soon, I can't wait!