Three disciplines, four days, and the cross-country course that decides the Grand Slam
The Burghley Horse Trials is an annual three-day event held in the park at Burghley House near Stamford in Lincolnshire, currently in early September. It runs at CCI5*-L level, the highest grade in eventing, and the FEI classifies it among the seven leading three-day events in the world — alongside Badminton, Kentucky, the Australian International, Luhmühlen, Maryland, and Pau.
It is also one of the three events that make up the Grand Slam of Eventing, the prize for winning three consecutive five-star competitions, which is why a September weekend in Lincolnshire regularly carries the weight of an entire season. Run in conjunction with the trials since 1990 is the Burghley Young Event Horse final, which judges four- and five-year-old horses on their potential as future Olympic mounts.
The origin is an accident of 1961. The owner of Burghley House, the 6th Marquess of Exeter — an Olympic gold medallist in athletics and a member of the International Olympic Committee — heard that a planned three-day event at Harewood House could no longer be held because of suspected foot-and-mouth disease, and offered his own park instead. Horse trials have been held there every year since.
No other international horse trials site has staged as many championships: a record ten in all, including the first World Championship in 1966. It is the longest continuously running international event in the sport. Up to 2023 the course had only seven designers across more than sixty years, among them Captain Mark Phillips over two long spells and Derek di Grazia from 2022 — a continuity that explains why the course has a recognisable character rather than a fashion.
Eventing asks one horse and one rider to do three different jobs across the same weekend. Dressage comes first, judged in an arena and setting the leaderboard before anything difficult has happened. Cross-country follows, over a long course of fixed obstacles in the open park, and it is where the standings are rearranged. Show jumping closes the event on the final day, in a ring, with the leaders going last and the smallest margins deciding it.
Burghley’s reputation rests on the cross-country. The park is undulating, the course is long, and the fences are built to be jumped at speed from ground that is rarely level. Riders talk about it as a test of stamina and nerve rather than of technique, and horses that have won elsewhere do not always cope with it. For a spectator it is the best possible introduction to the sport, because the whole course can be walked and the crowd stands close enough to hear the horses breathing.
Tell us which day you want and we will arrange the park, the course walk, and the county around it
Clients who follow eventing generally take both halves of the British season, and we arrange Badminton in May as the natural pair to Burghley in September. For those who follow the wider British equestrian calendar we also handle Royal Ascot, Cheltenham, and Glorious Goodwood. Corporate hosting across the weekend runs through our Business Concierge team.
The setting is not incidental. Burghley House is one of the great Elizabethan houses in England and the park was laid out to be looked at, so the event has a backdrop that no purpose-built venue can manufacture. A good deal of the weekend’s pleasure is simply walking the grounds between fences.
The other thing Burghley is known for is the trade village, which is far larger than the phrase suggests and has become a destination in its own right. Country clothing, saddlery, art, guns, boots, and food fill several avenues of stands, and a substantial share of visitors come for that as much as for the horses.
Stamford itself is worth a day. Built almost entirely in local limestone, it is the reason we advise a house nearby rather than a day trip from London.
In early September, in the park at Burghley House near Stamford in Lincolnshire
CCI5*-L, the highest grade in eventing. The FEI counts it among the seven leading three-day events in the world
The prize for winning three consecutive five-star events. Burghley is one of the three that make it up
Since 1961, which makes it the longest continuously running international event in the sport
Cross-country day. It decides the competition, and it is the only day the whole course is in use
Three to six months for hospitality. Accommodation in Stamford and the surrounding villages needs longer
The Burghley Horse Trials dates are announced well ahead of the early September event, once the cross-country course design is finalised.
Burghley Horse Trials tickets are sold separately for each day, with cross-country day on the Saturday the first to sell out.
The Burghley cross country course runs over roughly six and a half kilometres of parkland, with around 30 fences to test horse and rider.
Burghley House eventing has run on the same historic parkland since 1961, and its scale and terrain have kept it among the most demanding courses on the calendar.
Five star eventing is the highest classification in the sport, and Burghley is one of only a handful of events worldwide to hold it.
