Badminton International Horse Trials 2026 — Our First Year and What a Week It Was

Badminton International Horse Trials 2026 — Our First Year and What a Week It Was

There are events you do because they make sense for the business. And then there are events that make you feel, somewhere in your gut, that everything you’ve been building is absolutely on the right track. Badminton International Horse Trials 2026 was the latter.

How We Got There
First year applying. For most brands, that means the World of the Horse tent, or Eden Crafts, perfectly good spots, but not where we wanted to be. We had a different conversation. A few well-placed words in the right ears and we got ourselves on Swangrove Street, securing a spot that reflected what Lockwood actually is. That’s not luck. That’s what happens when the people you meet understand the company, what it stands for, and why it belongs somewhere worth being. We’re grateful to those who made it possible.

How the Week Unfolded
It started slowly, the way these events often do. The early days are about presence people clocking the stand, picking up the product, working out whether they’re interested. And then the weekend arrived and it went absolutely crazy. The kind of busy that makes you realise you probably should have brought more stock. The kind of busy that feels earned.

What stood out most wasn’t the volume of sales. It was the people. Customers who have been following Lockwood on social media for months, finally coming to see the product in person. People who had been on the fence about buying, wanting to feel the weight of a Halley Stevensons wax cotton smock before committing. Customers who had already purchased, coming to find us just to say how much they love what we’re doing. Every single one of those conversations was worth more than any advertisement we could run.
And almost universally, the reaction to the product was the same, people were blown away by the quality. Not surprised exactly, but genuinely struck by it. That never gets old to hear.

A Special mention — Employee of the Event
I’ll be honest with you. I am not always the most efficient person on a sales stand. I tend to get into conversations about the brand, about British manufacturing, about why someone’s grandfather’s old wax jacket lasted forty years and where you find that now and before long twenty minutes have passed and Ruth has quietly sold three smocks over my shoulder.
So it will come as no surprise that Ruth — the future Mrs Lockwood — walked away from Badminton with the official and entirely deserved Employee of the Event award. She outsold me comprehensively, as she usually does, and did it with the kind of warmth and conviction that makes people feel genuinely good about what they’ve just bought. Lockwood wouldn’t look the same without her on the stand. This week she absolutely proved it.

The Ones Who Walked In Not Knowing Us
Perhaps the most exciting thing of all was watching people discover Lockwood for the first time at the show. Walking in, not knowing the brand, hearing the story and then walking away with multiple items in their hands. That’s the show working exactly as it should. The product speaks for itself when it’s in front of the right people. Badminton delivered exactly those people, in exactly the right numbers.

What This Week Told Us
Badminton confirmed something we already believed but needed to see at scale. The demand for a genuinely British-made luxury brand, one built on craft, on values, on product that lasts, it is real and it is growing. The people who found us this week weren’t looking for a cheap jacket. They were looking for something worth owning. We are absolutely on the right track.

We’ll be back next year.

God bless, 

God save the king

Jacob Lockwood