A group of Olympic horses flew out from Stansted Airport on Friday (July 29), aboard a special cargo plane bound for Rio.

The Emirates Skycargo Boeing 777 left the UK at 3.20pm carrying 34 horses from 10 nations for the near 12-hour flight to Brazil.

Eventing horses from Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Japan, Italy and China were on board Friday’s flight, which was the first of nine shipments delivering more than 200 horses for the games.

The horses landed at Rio International Airport, before travelling to the Olympic Equestrian Centre in Deodoro Olympic Park.

The highly complex operation in getting the horses to Rio involves Stansted, Liege Airport in Belgium, and Miami Airport in the USA.

Overall, the horses and their riders will represent 43 nations from around the world in the Olympic disciplines of dressage, jumping and eventing.