Last night, we went to the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo — a spectacular nighttime show featuring  military bands, horses, and military tributes.

On the horse side of things, we saw the always-thrilling musical drive of the King’s Troop and the musical ride of the Household Cavalry. If you’ve never seen the King’s Troop, they have about 75 or so horses and six guns in the main arena. They do an exciting pattern of driving the guns (each one hitched to six horses) around the arena and (at high speed) across the diagonal from alternating sides. Near the end of the show, they unhitch the guns, take all the horses to the other end of the arena, and then shoot off all six guns, one at a time and then all together. The smoke from the guns is quite impressive at night! Once the guns are hitched back up and the show almost over, each team (six horses pulling a gun, with three riders behind) takes turns exiting the arena at a full gallop. The Household Cavalry, in their traditional uniforms, performed their own thrilling show, with the drum horse at the center. They also had four “trick” riders … at one point, two of the “trick” riders were each being circled by half of the cavalry riders. The “trick” riders made their horses lie down and then lay their heads in the riders’ laps (they were sitting on the ground at this point). Then, on cue, the horses jumped halfway up, the riders got on, and the horses leaped up the rest of the way. I’m not sure what the purpose of this is/was, but it was impressive nonetheless. At the very end of this performance, the cavalry galloped out of the arena in small groups. Then each of the “trick” riders galloped out, one at a time, each carrying a flag. At a full gallop, the flags streamed straight out behind them. First went the English flag, then the Scottish and the Welsh, and finally the British flag. This final one received a really loud cheer from the crowd.

We were also treated to a number of impressive military bands, from here and abroad. There was a fife and drum corps and drill team from Denmark and a marching steel drum band from Trinidad and Tabago. The Royal Air Force’s concert jazz band played some lively swing music. The Royal Navy band played while students from the Navy’s physical fitness school (or somesuch, I don’t remember the exact name) danced the hornpipe. And, of course, the military marching bands from the various branches of the Army and Marines thrilled the crowd, as did the massed bagpipe band.

Sorry for the lack of pictures from the tattoo, but we were sitting too far away for photos. As soon as I finish this, I’m heading over to the show, so we will have photos of today’s events!

If you want to follow the show results, don’t forget to check www.rwhs.co.uk. You can also find results for this weekend’s FEI driving event at www.hoefnet.com.