Gee up your weekend with a family friendly visit to the horses

1 Saturday Knight Fever comes to Norwich Castle on Saturday, October 7. A day of historic fun includes a real jousting horse, armed for war, plus medieval combat demonstrations by re-enactors – and a recreation of the Heath Ledger dance scene in the film A Knight's Tale, set to David Bowie's Golden Years. Plus hear talks on medieval war horses and see demonstrations of weapons and armour. Normal Castle admission prices, 10.30am to 3.30pm.

museums.norfolk.gov.uk

2 Meet racehorses, dress as a jockey and ride a racehorse simulator, and see if you can create a champion on an interactive touch screen at the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art, in Newmarket. Open daily 10am-5pm.

www.palacehousenewmarket.co.uk

The National Stud, also in Newmarket, is currently running tours at 11.15am, Friday to Sunday. See mares, foals and stallions and find out about the work behind producing champion horses, at Britain's only working thoroughbred stud farm to run public tours. Booking essential. £11 per person.

www.nationalstud.co.uk

3 Horse rescue charity Redwings is based in Hapton, near Long Stratton, with visitor centres in Aylsham, and at Caldecott, near Yarmouth, as well as in Essex and Scotland. Redwings looks after more than 2,000 horses, ponies, donkeys and mules and its Norfolk visitor centres are open, for free, every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 10am-4pm.

www.redwings.org.uk

4 The Suffolk Punch is rarer than the giant panda – but you can feast your eyes on the huge horses at the Suffolk Punch Trust, Hollesley, between Ipswich and Aldeburgh. Currently open Friday to Monday, 10.30am-4pm, for a chance to meet the horses, and other farm animals and pets, enjoy a countryside walk and arts and crafts. Daily stable demonstrations include the chance to learn how to braid a horse's mane.

suffolkpunchtrust.org

5 Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse is open daily until October 29 and beautiful Suffolk Punch horses still work its traditional farm. They help in planting, harvesting and ploughing and also, weather allowing, pull the carts for the popular cart rides around the farm most afternoons.

www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/gressenhall

6 The Norfolk Wildlife Trust has herds of ponies as part of its conservation grazing scheme. Dartmoor ponies roam heaths including Roydon Common, near King's Lynn, and Buxton Heath near Aylsham, and Polish Konig ponies graze wetter reserves including Hickling near Stalham.

www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk

7 Exmoor ponies graze the Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve at Knettishall Heath, near Thetford, with fellow Devonian equines, from Dartmoor, helping transform Dunwich Forest from conifer plantation into a wildlife rich mosaic of woodland, pasture and heath.

www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org

8 Black Beauty was created in East Anglia 140 years ago and Anna Sewell's classic children's book has never been out of print since. Illustrations from a 1912 edition, rarely displayed, to preserve their vibrant colours, are on show in Norwich until November 25.

Cecil Aldin: The Art of Black Beauty, is at the Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell.

www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk

9 Easton Farm Park, near Woodbridge, was just the second farm park to open in the UK, in 1974. Its animals include horses and ponies, and it is currently open Monday to Friday, 9.30am-3pm. Or try Jimmy's Farm, near Ipswich, open daily 9.30am-4pm, which has ponies and donkeys among its farm and exotic animals.

www.eastonfarmpark.co.uk

jimmysfarm.com

10 One of the UK's four World Horse Welfare rescue and rehoming centres is at Hall Farm, Snetterton, near Thetford. Around 100 horses, ponies and donkeys live here, on a working farm which welcomes visitors every weekend from 10am to 4pm.

The charity, founded to stop cruelty to horses too old or injured to work, is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. By the 1970s it was the largest horse rehoming charity in Britain and today works towards a world where every horse is treated with respect, compassion and understanding.

www.worldhorsewelfare.org/Farm/Hall-Farm