Horospherical two-orbit varieties as zero loci

We present geometric realizations of horospherical two-orbit varieties, by showing that their blow-up along the unique closed-invariant orbit is the zero locus of a general section of a homogeneous vector bundle over some auxiliary variety. As an application, we compute the cohomology ring of the $G_2$-variety, including its quantum version. We also consider the Spin${}_7$-variety, which deserves a different treatment.