And just like that, another Defender Burghley Horse Trials is over.
After all the planning, packing, organising, stressing, loading, unloading and wondering whether on earth everything was going to fit, suddenly it was Sunday evening and we were packing the stand back into the vehicles again.
And what a week it was.
Burghley has become such an important event for 3 Donkeys. It’s one of those weeks I look forward to enormously, while simultaneously questioning my sanity in the run-up to it!
For a small Devon business like ours, being able to take the 2to1® to an event of this size and meet so many customers face-to-face is pretty special.
Our best Burghley yet
This year was particularly exciting because sales were more than double what we expected (hoped for).
That still feels slightly surreal to write.
Our Exmoor 2to1® Waterproof Coveralls were without doubt the stars of the stand, and by the end of the weekend we were very close to selling out of several sizes.
Perhaps after the incredibly hot and dry summer we’ve had, everyone was preparing themselves for the inevitable return of proper British weather!
One of my favourite parts of any event is seeing someone try a 2to1® for the first time.
Because the design is a little different to conventional coveralls, you can explain it all day long online, but once somebody puts one on, separates the jacket and trousers and realises they can wear the two pieces individually or zip them together as full coveralls, you can often see the moment when it suddenly makes sense.
That is always a lovely thing to watch when it’s a product you originally designed because you needed it yourself.
A little Devon idea at Burghley
3 Donkeys started with a very simple problem: I couldn’t find women’s coveralls that actually worked for the way I wanted to wear them.
I wanted something made for a woman’s shape rather than a smaller version of men’s workwear, and I wanted the flexibility to take the top half off without having an entire pair of coveralls hanging around my waist.
That ultimately became the 2to1®.
Years later, standing at Burghley watching women from completely different walks of life trying them on — farmers, horse owners, dog walkers, vets, gardeners and people who simply spend a lot of time outdoors — still gives me a bit of a “how did we get here?” moment.
Small business can be relentless, and most of the time you’re concentrating on whatever needs doing next rather than stopping to look at how far you’ve come.
Burghley tends to make me stop and do that.
Introducing SealStop
We also took something a little different with us to Burghley this year — SealStop.
It’s one of those brilliantly simple products that makes you wonder why you didn’t discover it years ago.
We use SealStop here on the farm, especially when we’re calf rearing, and it has become one of those genuinely useful bits of kit that earns its place very quickly.
If you’ve ever put a hose in a bucket or trough, walked away to do another job and then suddenly remembered it rather later than you should have, you’ll know exactly why I love it.
SealStop automatically shuts the water off when the bucket or trough reaches the required level, which means no overflowing water, no flooded yard and no standing there waiting for something to fill when you’ve got a hundred other jobs to do.
Simple, practical and very much the sort of product we like at 3 Donkeys.
And if SealStop looks familiar, you may well have spotted founders Belle and Jason Richardson on BBC One’s Dragons’ Den in August. They took SealStop into the Den and pitched it to Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Steven Bartlett and guest Dragon Gary Neville.
Although they left without an investment, Deborah Meaden said she would buy the product herself and offered to introduce it to yard owners — which I think says rather a lot about just how useful such a simple idea can be.
You can watch SealStop’s Dragons’ Den episode on BBC iPlayer here:
Dragons’ Den on BBC iPlayer
We took SealStop to Burghley because I only really want to recommend products that we actually use ourselves and genuinely believe are useful. The response was brilliant, with lots of people immediately understanding exactly why it’s such a handy thing to have around the yard, stable or farm.
I’m really pleased to say that SealStop will soon be available to buy directly through the 3 Donkeys website.
And it’s also the start of something I’ve wanted to do for a while — introduce a small collection of products from other businesses that sit naturally alongside 3 Donkeys.
Not shelves full of random things just for the sake of having more to sell, but useful, well-designed products that we’ve tried, liked and would happily recommend ourselves.
Think of it as a little collection of 3 Donkeys-approved kit.
SealStop is the first.
And there are more to come.
Watch this space. 👀
And then there was Rosie…
Of course, I can’t possibly write about Burghley 2026 without mentioning the member of the team who believes the entire event was organised predominantly for her benefit.
Rosie.
Her first Burghley rapidly turned into her self-appointed reign as the Basset of Burghley.
She spent much of the week greeting visitors, sleeping in various strategically chosen locations around the stand and generally attracting an extraordinary amount of attention for somebody who contributed very little to the actual running of the business.
She did eventually find her voice too, which possibly wasn’t her finest contribution to the week.
But I suspect she’ll be back.
The people make it
As much as Burghley is about selling, it’s the people that make the event for me.
Seeing returning customers wearing their 3 Donkeys, meeting people who have followed us online for years, putting faces to Instagram names and hearing how people are using their 2to1® is invaluable.
There are also the people behind the scenes who make the week possible.
Long days on a trade stand are much easier when you’ve got brilliant people around you, plenty of laughter, good food and, in our case, potentially one or two Pimms that were poured slightly more enthusiastically than intended.
Running a small business can sometimes feel very solitary, so weeks like Burghley are a lovely reminder that there is a whole community around it.
Back to reality
And then suddenly it’s over.
The stand comes down.
Everything somehow gets squeezed back into the vehicles.
You drive home.
And instead of beautiful Burghley Park, you’re greeted by the orders that need sending, mountains of washing, emails that have accumulated while you’ve been away and all the jobs on the farm that very inconsiderately carried on existing while you were gone.
Small business glamour at its finest.
But despite the exhaustion, I came home from Burghley 2026 feeling incredibly positive about where 3 Donkeys is heading.
To have doubled our expected sales from the previous year, to see such a fantastic response to the Exmoor 2to1®, and to introduce SealStop to so many people made it a very special week.
Most importantly, thank you to every single person who visited the stand.
Whether you bought a 2to1®, discovered SealStop, stopped for a chat, fussed Rosie, told somebody else about us or have supported 3 Donkeys from afar — it genuinely means a huge amount.
So… Burghley 2027?
Obviously, we’re already thinking about next year.
Defender Burghley Horse Trials 2027 takes place from 2–5 September 2027, and the official Burghley website says the Box Office will open in early 2027.
If Burghley is on your list for next year, you can find everything you need here:
Burghley Horse Trials:
https://burghley-horse.co.uk/
2027 tickets and membership:
https://burghley-horse.co.uk/tickets
And yes… I think it’s fairly safe to assume the Basset of Burghley will expect to return too.
Thank you, Burghley.
You were bloody brilliant. 💜
See you in 2027.
Amanda x
Founder & Designer, 3 Donkeys
Home of the 2to1® Women’s Modular Coverall
