An Eventful Life is filming every rider on cross country at Blair - find out more here
The dressage is done for the CCI classes at Blair Castle and on Saturday the CCI1*, 2* and 3* competitors head out on the hilly terrain of Blair Castle
On Sunday it will be the turn of the riders in the Event Rider Masters Series CIC3* and the Scottish National Championships CIC3* to head into the hills. The venue of the 2015 FEI European Championships has benefited greatly from the legacy of last year’s event with ongoing structural changes having taken place since 2012. A new network of access tracks around the hilly course were created, the main dressage arena was dug out and new drainage installed and some spectacular fences built to make the most of this venue’s spectacular scenery
Ian Stark created the 2015 European Championship course and Alec Lochore, Event Director at Blair Castle since 2009, has taken over the reins as cross country course designer here this year. It has been a busy year for Alec, having just returned from Rio where he was the Olympic Games Eventing Technical Delegate but he has been also busy back on his home turf.
This year’s course runs the opposite way to that of the European Championship course and is obviously less testing than Ian Stark’s 2015 course but it is still going to require fit horses and some good riding at all levels.
“The courses are quite different but we’re using many of the same features (as the 2015 European Championships track” says Alec Lochore of the 2016 cross country course at Blair where the ground is ‘nearly perfect’
Alec Lochore
View every fence on the CCI3* cross country course here
