The first horses have arrived at Greenwich Park, setting for the Olympic equestrian events at London 2012.

The equine athletes’ trunks of equipment must undergo the equivalent of the airport-style "mag and bag" checks done on every person attending the Olympic Games. To date this has been completed for the first 75 of 219 Olympic horses that have been through the specially constructed equine staging facility (ESF) at Greenwich University over the past two days and all are now settled into their temporary new home by this evening.

The equine athletes have to undergo an even stricter screening process than the one that the human athletes go through before entering Olympic venues. On arrival at the ESF, horses are unloaded from their transport trucks and taken to temporary stabling, where an initial health check is carried out by a veterinary team to make sure that the horses have no signs of infectious disease or injury. This is standard biosecurity procedure at all international events, and is the first layer of protection for the competition horses, and for the event itself.

Simultaneously, the horse transport trucks are checked inside and out using sniffer dogs. The sniffer dogs are also used to check the cargo. The cargo is then unloaded and scanned before being loaded onto separate trucks for delivery direct to the stables, with the grooms’ luggage also being delivered straight to their on-site accommodation