The Slower Road

Oooohhhh. The folks in charge of producing and promoting the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant, which our big CAA group saw while we were in Windsor, has just released a beautiful video montage … with stunning still photos and video clips.

I’m unable to embed the video here, so I’ll have to give you a few steps to get there.

1) Click here.

2) When that page opens, go to the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and make your way to page 30.

3) Enjoy the video!

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UPDATED (with thanks to Bart, who posted the direct link in the comments):

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This past weekend, one week after the Royal Windsor Horse Show, Windsor (the castle and the town) witnessed a huge military parade in honor of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The military units, bands, and singers all ended up in the horse show’s main arena, where we had watched the Jubilee Pageant the week before. The highlight of the day was a military-aircraft fly-over, which must’ve looked and sounded rather spectacular.

And for a YouTube tour of some highlights from our week in Windsor: there’s a professional video with views of the FEI-driving marathon, an amateur video of the talented and funny New Zealand Army Band, another professional video that offers a quick look back at the horse show and pageant, and Hoefnet’s video of Boyd Exell’s dressage test (in the pouring rain). Hoefnet has quite a few more videos on their YouTube channel (here). Just scroll down to the “CAI-A Windsor 2012” videos for dressage tests, marathon obstacles, and portions of the cones competion. Enjoy!

Throughout the rest of this week, I’ll continue with Windsor-related blog posts, as I still have LOTS more photos to share.

On our final evening in Windsor, I and about half of our huge CAA group watched the spectacular pageant in celebration of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (the rest of our group had already seen the pageant on Saturday). We were magnificently entertained by musicians, singers, riders, drivers, tent-peggers, acrobats on horseback, and native dancers from all over the world.

I must admit that the only photos I took during the pageant itself are these three:

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one section of grandstands is starting to fill up for the evening’s performance; the pink section on the right is the royal box

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the huge stage (facing the royal box) was designed to look like Buckingham Palace

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the first pageant performers in the arena were the Household Cavalry and some of the King’s Troop (the horses in harness in the foreground); here, everyone was awaiting the The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who arrived in a horse-drawn Landau

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I was lucky enough to see some of the U.S. contingent “backstage” on Saturday evening (here, if you haven’t already seen it).

During the week, I (and everyone else at the show) enjoyed seeing many of the pageant participants during the horse show itself. Some of the groups (bands and horse groups, especially) performed during the day in the various horse-show rings; some of the native dance groups performed at various times in a large tent on the showgrounds; and many of them, like the rest of us, enjoyed walking around the show, seeing the sights, watching the horses, and visiting the trade fair … usually wearing some variation of their native / performance outfits. I’ve shared photos of some of these in previous posts, and here are a few more:

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dancers from the Cook Islands

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one …

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… and two of the representatives of four different Kenyan tribes at the show

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the Oman hospitality tent

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… and a close-up of an example of some of the beautiful silver tack worn by the hundreds of horses in the Royal Cavalry of Oman

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the New Zealand Army Band provided fun marching-band music, some rugby, and a good dose of comedy

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Last Sunday at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, members of the British Driving Society gathered for a drive through Windsor Home Park and a Concours d’Elegance competition. Following with the tradition of this annual drive, the group was led by HRH Prince Phillip, driving HM The Queen’s team of Fell ponies.

After all the rain and mud of the previous few days, and the unfortunate cancellation of Friday’s coaching marathon, the participants in the BDS drive couldn’t have asked for a prettier day.

I was able to get photos of several of the turnouts while they were lined up on the road after their drive; driving down the road; in a collecting arena; and (the winner of the first-place ribbon) in the main arena.

Enjoy!

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the winning Hackney Pony

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