Balance is our film about eventing, shot across four days of the 2025 Scone Palace International Horse Trials, two of them dressage. Rather than follow one horse and rider throughout, it was built from many different combinations across the event, cut down from four days of material into a ten minute film about what balance actually costs.
Why eventing?
Eventing asks for balance more than any other equestrian sport, because the same horse and rider have to be right in three completely different ways across a single event. Dressage rewards stillness and control, judged movement by movement in the main arena below Scone Palace itself. Cross country rewards nerve, twenty odd fences taken at speed in around six minutes. Show jumping asks for the same precision as the very first phase, from horses that have already given three days of harder work by the time they reach it. Get any one of the three wrong and the other two do not save you.
Not one story, but many
I had not filmed eventing before the 2025 Trials, so I spent a lot of the four days second guessing where to be and what to point the camera at. Having been out of the sport for years, I also did not know who the big names in the field were, which meant I filmed everyone with the same attention rather than chasing reputations. That is why Balance does not follow one horse and rider through the event. It is built from many different combinations, five riders, Ian Stark, Wills Oakden, Douglas Crawford, Gordon Murphy and Cameron Swales, and the dressage judge Christina Klingspor, speaking about what balance actually means, cut together from four days of material into one throughline.
From dressage to the final fence
Two of the four days were dressage, filmed in the main arena below Scone Palace, every movement marked out of ten with no one there to help the rider once they are in. Cross country came next, filmed out on the course on foot, camera on the shoulder, twenty odd fences taken at speed over about six minutes a round. Show jumping came last, asking for the same precision as the dressage days from horses that had already given three harder days of work. One unbalanced stride, one pole on the floor, and everything that came before it is undone.
Why we call it Balance
“Stay relaxed and the horse stays relaxed. The mental balance becomes the physical balance.” That line, spoken in the film, is the whole idea. I loved the riders’ faces, particularly in the moments when things were not quite in balance. That is where the story is. Eventing is judged on movements, times and faults, but what it is actually testing is composure held across four days. That is the same held focus the company takes its name from. Read more on The Quiet Eye, and watch the full film on its own page.
Balance was filmed and edited by Stefan, produced by Quiet Eye Productions, and runs ten minutes. It was shot across four days at the 2025 Scone Palace International Horse Trials, and is our newest complete film.