World’s best at Weston Park
Some of the world’s top riders will converge on the Shropshire border this weekend for the Weston Park Horse Trials.
The ancestral home of the Earls of Bradford will play host to more than 500 horse riders taking part in the two-day event.
Top riders including Shropshire’s Oliver Townend, Polly Stockton, Jeanette Brakewell and Irish team member Padraig McCarthy will take part in tomorrow’s Blue Chip Challenge trials. On Sunday the Rookery Park Novice Sections and Moores Metals Open Novice including under-18s plus the Blue Chip BE100 will take place.
The course, designed by Janet Plant and superbly constructed, will run over a thousand acres of rolling wooded parkland and the fences are solid and imposing.
Each class runs over a different course and Plant said: “It is always a great privilege to design on such a fabulous estate and the courses run on the central park through the wood by Park Lake giving wonderful views from the vantage points which is greatly appreciated by owners, riders and spectators.”
Both days get under way from 8am with dressage event, followed by showjumping and cross country. Cars with a British Equestrian Federation membership card are free. Non-members are £10, accompanied children under 12 are free.
