A Medieval tournament is being held at Scarborough castle this weekend, 11-12th August 2018, the highlight being a display of horsemanship and mock fighting/jousting.

Jousting was a Medieval contest of strength, skill and horsemanship. This reenactment was staged by a company called Historic Equitation and involved four mounted horses decked out in colours as they might have been back in the 13th century. Fighting on horseback clearly required great deal of horsemanship, and this was beautifully displayed during the reenactment of jousting and fighting with swords.

There was an initial demonstration of how the horses were trained for warfare in the 13th Century, followed by a mock tournament an hour or so later.

The horses were the stars of this show!

The horses seemed to enjoy it and were amazingly relaxed and happy to be petted by people in the audience after the first show.

The jousting and fighting was a bit of fun and allowed children to wave flags and root for one of the four mounted knights.

The contest begins!

It must have been very difficult to ride and maneuver the horse wearing a helmet with such a restricted field of view!

The jousting was done with wooden lances!

A Medieval knight had to learn to fight, but at the end of the day, he was only as good as his horse and horsemanship.

I took hundreds of photographs, handholding a Nikon F2.8 70-200mm lens; these are just a few of the more dynamic images.

There appeared to be some Medieval stable maids who removed the garments and saddles from the horses!

There were plenty of other fun things to do, like archery and wine tasting!