Last year’s winner, William Fox-Pitt has confirmed that he will be defending his title at this year's Burghley Horse Trials (3 to 6 September 2009), H&C is excited to learn.

The leading British rider, one of 100 international entries for this year’s event, will have to beat some serious opposition from many of the world’s top riders and horses before he can take home the Land Rover Perpetual Challenge trophy and the £50,000 first prize for a second year. If he's successful, a consecutive win would put his name in the record books and he would be the first person ever to win six Burghley titles since the inception of the competition in 1961.

Burghley Course Designer Captain Mark Phillips has unveiled his course of 27 fences for this year’s event, which will maintain Burghley’s reputation of an influential cross country track in the three phase competition of dressage, cross country and show jumping.

“We have a truly top class field of entries this year from around the world promising an exciting four days of sport and competition,” said Burghley Director Elizabeth Inman.

The competition starts with dressage on Thursday - traditionally the day of the popular invitation Pony Club show jumping in Ring 2, which the following day will host the Burghley Dubarry Young Event Horse finals, the culmination of 19 qualifying competitions to spot the top event horses of the future. A parade of sport horse stallions and a dressage display by Ferdi Eilberg are also among the entertainment scheduled during the event.

And visitors can forget the credit crunch with over 500 trade stands and five pavilions to shop until they drop!