Bramham Horse Trials is looking ahead to 2021

The four-day event, which has been cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, is a key date in the national eventing calendar and eagerly anticipated by equestrians across Yorkshire.

Bramham International Horse Trials Director, Nick Pritchard said the decision to cancel had been sad but inevitable in the current circumstances. “It is a real shame, but it is what it is” he said.

It is only the second time the horse trials has been cancelled since it first ran as a one-day event in 1973.

Set up by George Lane-Fox, the ninth generation of his family to live on the estate, Mr Lane-Fox acted as event director and course designer in the early days and remained heavily involved in the annual event up until his death in 2012.

“When George set the horse trials up, he wanted it to be a family friendly Sunday out and that is what we still aim to deliver,” Mr Pritchard said.

“It was hugely important to him, he loved the event and it was the highlight of his year.”

The horse trials are still very much a family affair with Mr Lane-Fox’s son Nick and his family who now own the estate taking over the reins in the late 90s.

It is the biggest three-day event north of Burghley, which has also been cancelled for the first time in its history this year due to the coronavirus restrictions.

Mr Pritchard, who has been director since 2009, said not hosting the horse trials this year was “very strange”.

“It is such a huge part of our year and we really look forward to it. It is such hard work but such good fun,” he said.

Around 60,000 people come to the gates during the four days at the beginning of June and planning for the next year’s event starts almost before that year’s event has finished.

“We normally have one or two things we wanted to put in place but weren’t able to get done in time, so we put those finishing touches in first for the following year,” Mr Pritchard said.

“We also have a wonderful team of officials and volunteers who give us some great feedback on what works, what doesn’t and what we can improve, it may be where the toilets are sited or a marquee that needs changing. Their comments are invaluable for improving the event.”

Mr Pritchard said long-standing course designer, eventing legend, Ian Stark, would also be making notes for the following year as he watched how the course rides on Saturday’s cross country day.

The Olympic silver medallist and former Bramham winner, has been designing the course for a decade.

“Ian has lots and lots of great ideas and we work very hard to get the balance right for the competitors and the spectators. We have to make sure people can get safely around the course.

“We also need to think about the estate as a whole, it is a farming estate so that needs to be taken into consideration, it has areas of historic parkland and we need to make sure areas don’t get overused from the horse trials and Leeds Festival.”

But there are some elements of the course which are an intrinsic part of the event in particular the water jump which attracts huge crowds on the slopes either side.

“The water jump is a key feature and is loved by spectators. A few years ago we did make some changes within it and we have some flexibility but it is a crowd favourite.”

Mr Pritchard said it was also a testament to Mr Stark’s expertise that Bramham attracts the world’s top event riders.

“It is a great course and we have some wonderful terrain.

“It is said if you have a horse which does Bramham well, it will do Burghley. It is lovely the riders take Bramham so seriously and come every year.”

This Thursday would have seen the first riders in the dressage arena and in a normal year Mr Pritchard said the week running up to the event would be a “hive of activity”.

“The marquees would be up, stables built, trade-stands in place and generators coming in. By the Sunday before we would be good to go but at the moment it is just very quiet.”

However Mr Pritchard said the team was now looking ahead to next year.

“We are all very excited about it. We had some great changes planned for this year and we can take the time to make sure they were the right decisions. It will be slightly strange as we have planned an event but not run it. So we will need to decide how much we pick up and move on to next year and how much we change.

“Working on the horse trials, I am always learning and we couldn’t do it without our volunteers and officials who are the cogs which make the machine work.”