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Badminton Horse Trials

The Badminton Horse Trials are the pinnacle of the world’s 3-Day-Event calendar. Competitors must complete a different discipline every day.

Day One-Dressage

Required to complete 23 different movements, competitors are marked out of 10 for each.

Day Two-Cross-country

Horse and rider must finish a 4 mile cross country ride, negotiating 45 jumps.

Day Three-Show Jumping

The jumps can be up to 1.2m high and 2.3m wide. This discipline can attract crowds of up to 13,000 spectators.

The Badminton Horse Trials are regarded as the oldest of their kind, first being held in 1946, and qualification can take several years.

All 3-Day-Events are graded with the higher grades being more difficult. Badminton is ranked as a 4 star event which makes it the hardest of its kind and is one of only five others of this complexity in the world.

The Trials take place in May of every year in the park of Badminton House and attracting up to a quarter of a million spectators, they are the most popular paid-entry sport in the United Kingdom.
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