Adelaide Equestrian Festival 2026 | Review

Whether you are mad about horses or just have an interest in them, the Adelaide Equestrian Festival is a must-do for equine enthusiasts. Attendees are treated to watching a world class competition in Show Jumping, Cross Country and Dressage, with competitors showing an impressive amount of skill in the Gillian Rolton Arena.

Review by Jo Parkinson

Now running for 22 consecutive years, the Adelaide Equestrian Festival is a three-day event held in the Eastern Parklands.  This prestigious competition is internationally recognised and the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It showcases competitions over the three days including Dressage, Cross Country and Show Jumping.

The festival is family friendly and includes a variety of attractions, such as an Interactive Kids Hub, live music, market stalls and food trucks.

Competition (Show Jumping)

We enjoyed a lovely day at the festival on the Sunday, soaking up the excitement for the big show jumping competitions. It was easy to keep up with the schedule of the day as the program was accessible online. Even though we were unfamiliar with rules and competitors, we loved admiring the incredible skills of the riders and horses as they worked their way around the jumps in the arena. We were surprised by how attentive and quiet the crowd was as they watched the competition, almost like you were in a theatre watching a show. It was great to see the Australian riders hard work paying off, as they were awarded a gold medal by Adelaide Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax-Smith.

Kids Activities

The Kids Hub provided fun interactive activities to do in between the competitions, including face painting, colouring in, horse themed Barbies, plaster painting, and a giant Connect 4 and checkers game. The best part was it was all included for free with your ticket! And we loved the miniature horses who came out for a pat and a munch on some grass, they were very cute.

We also enjoyed the live music concert with Farmer George and his friends, singing educational songs about nature and encouraging everyone to join in and dance. The best dancers were lucky enough to win prizes.

Market and Refreshments

The market stalls were horse heaven for anyone who rides or owns a horse. There was a huge variety of anything you could need for horses, such as saddles, bridles, floats and a fantastic range of horse-riding gear.

There was also a great range of food trucks – we couldn’t resist the Strawberries & Cream van and the Baked Potatoes! The lines weren’t very long and service was super quick, which meant we could get back to the action of the day.

Even if your knowledge of horses and competitions is limited, we highly recommend the Adelaide Equestrian Festival for a fun family day out, it is suitable for all ages and even dog friendly.

The Adelaide Equestrian Festival is an annual event held in April each year.

At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.

As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post and our review is done completely independently. All photos are by Play & Go.

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