“The cancellation of many of Britain’s major equestrian events in 2021, including Badminton and Burghley, has been very disappointing for riders, owners and eventing fans,” said Cornbury House Horse Trials president and founder David Howden. “We are even more determined, therefore, to host the best possible event and to provide them with world-class conditions for horse sport.”

The specially-created grass main arena is being extended by 20% for the 2021 event, and there will be three newly-sited levelled dressage arenas in front of Cornbury House for the international classes at CCI3*-S and CCI2*-S level. This year there will be two senior CCI3*-S classes, one of which will be a particularly exciting “elite” section for the top 200 riders in the FEI rankings, and for which dressage will take place in the main arena on Thursday, 8 September. 

David Howden said: “We had wonderfully positive reactions to our inaugural event, and we have listened hard to feedback in order to help us improve in any way. 

“Eventing is such a special and highly demanding sport, and we want to reward riders as much as we can. We are once again offering unprecedented levels of prize-money at this level, with the senior CCI3*-S winners taking home £2,500, while the first prize in the senior CCI2*-S is £1,250.”

The layout of the event site has been amended, with a new, large, horse-box parking area, and timetable changes mean that this year the showjumping and cross-country phases of the senior international classes will take place on Friday, 9 September.

Cornbury House Horse Trials has again worked with British Eventing’s Youth Programme to offer two special under-21 international classes at CCI3*-S and CCI2*-S level, for which the dressage will be on Saturday, 10 September and jumping phases on Sunday, 11 September.

The national novice and intermediate classes received enormous numbers of entries in 2020, and novice classes will take place on Saturday this year with intermediate and open intermediate sections on Sunday.

The jumping phases will again be live-streamed via the event website (cornburyhousehorsetrials.co.uk) and social media channels.