Highs, Lows, and Heatstroke: Day One at the 2026 FEI World Championships

It’s been a long, hot, and enormously competitive first day at the FEI World Championships at Aachen, where 43 horses and riders took to the stage to get the week’s sport underway.

There were the ecstasies: Spain’s Esteban Benitez-Valle, for example, who looked like he might never leave the thrall of the arena after a sweet test with Utrera AA, and instead rode circle after circle, alternately punching the air and uproariously goading the audience into ever-bigger cheers for his 33.3. And then, moments later, Canada’s Jessie Phoenix beaming and patting before a screaming Kiss-and-Cry podium, full of love for patchy crowd-pleaser Fluorescent Adolescent, who has previously struggled with tension in this phase. Apparently she just needed to enter the arena to a full-scale riot of joy en Española to find her own five-star personal best.

There were also, though, the agonies: a TV camera on the corner by C and M had been the primary spook-maker of yesterday’s arena familiarisation sessions, but even some of those horses who’d passed by it happily enough then had issues today. One of the biggest cheers of the day went to Hungary’s Noemi Doerfer, who tactfully piloted last-of-the-day Piltown Harry through his sudden horror of the thing; Dutch pathfinder Splinter Bergsma had an even more heart-stopping moment when Vigo Key SR Z shied violently on his first sighting of it, but managed to course-correct over the remainder of the test.

That sort of thing, of course, is part of the unique drama of a World Championships, even if it’s a championship that’s happening on such familiar territory as Aachen. We’ve relocated to a new dressage area for this year, trading the usual sand stadium for the capacious grass expanse of the combined driving field; we’ve got grandstands that are actually at least halfway full; we’ve got pressures and intensities somehow over and above even those of a ‘normal’ Aachen, if such a thing even exists. It’s a formula for uncertainty almost more than anything else.

That uncertainty, and that inescapable frisson of buzziness, could well have rewritten the story of the day for Great Britain’s Tom McEwen and JL Dublin, the most hotly-anticipated starters of the day. As they rode down the chute, the British supporters in the grandstand reached a sort of heat-and-Radler-induced delirium, screaming and bellowing as though they were already celebrating the end of the test. 15-year-old Dubs (Diarado – Canto B), who already wasn’t perhaps totally on side, then spooked at the flowers by A on his way into the ring after some rejigging of their planned final pre-entry route.

“I’m really pleased, and he always delivers, but there was actually a little bit more atmosphere than I expected to begin with,” says Tom. “He was a bit lit up straight away when I went in there, and I could feel it when I tried to trot and he kept trying to pop into canter. I thought, ‘right, we’re not quite where I want to be!’”

Once safely into the ring, though, “he delivered a really good test,” says Tom, ultimately earning a score of 26.6 to take the day one lead individually and steer Great Britain to equal gold medal position at this early stage.

“It’s a shame, because I know we can do a 21 or a 22 rather than a 26, but it’s great for the team and I’m really pleased with him,” he says.

Those loftier scores were precluded by a small lapse in communication on the final centreline, which features a flying change just after turning onto the line.

“He’s been annoyed by the flies all week, and I’ve been really struggling with that. I know he’s completely with me, because he doesn’t pay any attention to the flies, and I could feel him starting to go and I knew we’d lost all concentration, but it’s a tough test.”

Tom and Dubs’ score does leave the door open for day two’s major contenders. Chief among those, teammate Laura Collett with London 52 and German rivals Michael Jung and fischerChipmunk FRH could reasonably have been expected to surpass them in any case, but now, there’s a broader entry point that could well be bested by the likes of Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo or Julia Krajewski and Uelzener’s Nickel – or, indeed, partnerships such as Sweden’s Louise Romeike and Caspian 15, who have put mid-20s scores up at four-star.

While much could change tomorrow, for tonight, there’ll be plenty to celebrate in the New Zealand camp: they’ve come into this competition hotly tipped to match or better their bronze medal from 2022, and at the end of day one, they’re sitting flush with the Brits on a score of 55.9.

The best of their two team riders today was Jonelle Price and the twelve-year-old Senor Crocodillo who, like JL Dublin before him, is a German-bred Holsteiner. They hold provisional silver on a score of 27.2, a career personal best for the former Sam Lissington ride at any international level.

“I think the highlight [today] was just really the evolution of this horse,” says Jonelle, who took the reins in 2022. “He’s not a fancy mover, and he hasn’t got a lot of high marks in him, so the aim over the last couple of years has been to produce a solid test, mistake-free. He can sort of do everything well enough and then pitch the odd high mark where we can, and we certainly managed to do that today. I’m delighted with him, and it’s really nice to get that phase out of the way.”

Both these leading horses have previously competed at Aachen in its ordinary CCIO4*-S iteration; both, too, had a mistake on cross-country when doing so, which their riders hope will have been formative educational moments that stop them from being caught by surprise by the venue’s quirks.

“This is a ten-minute Aachen on steroids,” laughs Jonelle. “There’s a lot of places where it can unravel, right to the very end. It’ll take a huge amount of accuracy, honesty, and bravery.”

France as a nation sits in the wings overnight in a close fifth place, just over eight penalties off the lead, but individually, they’re well in the hunt thanks to a super test from 30-year-old Alexis Goury and the 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood Je’Vall, with whom he finished sixth and best of the French at last year’s European Championships.

On that occasion, the pair began their week on a score of 31.9. Today, they improved on that exponentially, delivering a 28.5 in this new version of the short, very intense FEI Olympic test. They have never previously broken the 30 barrier at four-star.

“I really felt that my horse was 100% focused on me,” says Alexis. “He’s making huge progress in the dressage; at first, he wasn’t at all sure of himself, but he’s gained a lot of confidence in me and now he allows me to ride him to his full potential.”

He is, continues Alexis, “a horse with real dressage aptitude – but when he gets a bit into his own bubble, he can become tricky, because he doesn’t have the easiest conformation for this phase. But in this test, he stayed with me and really gave his all, and I just tried to stay cool and enjoy it myself, which paid off.”

The pair’s personal best could well have been even punchier, but for a touch of anticipation coming out of the walk work into counter canter, which dropped them – barely – down to 6s from two of the judges.

“I really wanted to prepare him early carefully for the canter transition so as not to startle him, but then he thought it was time to go, so that was really my fault,” says Alexis. But, he counters, “I didn’t have any issues at all with the flying changes, so that’s one less source of stress for me – they used to be a real weak point.”

France’s tricky start – pathfinder Benjamin Massie and Figaro Fonroy posted an uncharacteristic 35.6, the worst score of the horse’s international career – was “definitely a motivation; it makes you want to push yourself to make up some ground. But I was certainly disappointed for Benjamin, who usually finishes ahead of me in France!”

Germany’s Malin Hansen-Hotopp is no stranger to Aachen with her 14-year-old Carlitos Quidditch K – they’ve been here three times previously, never adding cross-country jumping penalties and always finishing in the top twenty. Nothing, though, quite compares to returning as part of the home team, particularly when that home team is also here to defend the gold medal they won four years ago. Germany also comes here as the European titleholders; Malin and Carlitos Quidditch K were part of that effort at Blenheim last year, finishing eleventh.

Pressure firmly on, then – and results decisively delivered. They sit fourth overnight, and in bronze medal position as a team, after earning a 28.6 as Germany’s second round pair this afternoon.

That excellent test, though, came after an inauspicious start: the son of Quiwi Dream was inspired by the electricity of the arena, and though Malin tried to signal the crowd to stay quiet, they were keen to welcome one of their own – and she had to sit deep and ride through a cavorting moment before entering the ring.

“In the moment I was just like, ‘oh my god!’” laughs Malin, who first took on the gelding as a resale project for a friend some nine years ago, and then gathered the funds to keep him in her yard.

Once they began their test, Malin used the extra impulsion to her advantage.

“He was really on [in there] but I could produce every movement so forward and how I wanted to. Even the walk was very good!”

But they were one of several pairs to have a mistake in the transition from walk to counter-canter at C, and they were nearly into the corner before they successfully stepped up in the canter.

“I can’t remember that he’s ever made a mistake when we’ve started to canter, but that’s life,” says Malin. “Afterwards, I really tried to make everything perfect so the marks wouldn’t go down and down after our failure, and I think we did that really well. It’s not a dressage competition, but I really enjoy that horse, and to be here is just awesome. We had a press conference with the German federation yesterday, and they asked Rodolphe [Scherer, interim team coach] what he thinks and how it works with his team, and he said ‘they’re all champions – Olympic champions and European champions.’ It’s just amazing to be in this kind of a team.”

If it wasn’t for JL Dublin representing dark bays at the top of the leaderboard, we’d begin to suspect some sort of bias in today’s judging: places two through six are occupied by greys. The first of those to set a standard today was Rocket Man, who was second in the ring this morning under New Zealand pathfinder Clarke Johnstone, and whose 28.7 sees them sit fifth going into the second day of dressage.

“It was probably one notch down from what we could have done if it was as good as possible,” says Clarke, who has flirted with the low 20s at four-star with the eleven-year-old gelding, previously piloted by Eliza Bell. “I just thought the arena would have lit him up a little bit, but he was totally relaxed. Sometimes he’s better when he’s a fraction not so relaxed.”

But, he continues, “he did everything I asked, and everything more or less happened where it was supposed to, and I thought there were some real highlights. He’s a beautiful horse, and lovely to ride and train, but this is his first championship, and he took it all in like a pro.”

As second in the ring, Clarke was just the second person ever to ride this new championship test in a competition – Austria’s Daniel Dunst takes the unique privilege of having been the first.

“It’s pretty fast and furious, and while the Paris Olympics test was similar, this feels even more hectic in the canter section,” says Clarke. “But if your horse can do all the movements, then it’s actually a really fun test to ride – and it’s nice to get it over and done with nice and quickly, too.”

Great Britain’s Gemma Stevens holds sixth place overnight with the fourteen-year-old Flash Cooley on a score of 29.3 – a predictably competitive start for a pair who have so consistently been mid-20s scorers at four- and three-star.

This is a first five-star equivalent test for ‘Casper’, who won Royal Jump’s CCI4*-L in May, and though the pair had a slight misunderstanding on the tricky final centre line, which features a flying change on the mown straight line, there was much to like from the former Liz Halliday ride.

“I’m over the moon with all of [the test], apart from that last centre line, which was just such a shame and honestly, just a misunderstanding,” says Gemma. “He thought he were halting; it’s hot today, and I think he’d probably had enough today, and he just came up the centre line at the end and went to stop and I was like, ‘no, no, we’ve got to do a flying change!’”

Then, she says, “we were obviously completely muddled. It’s a real shame to lose that last mark because that’s actually been a real highlight in training, but the rest of it was so good and he was so relaxed and with me, and a real pleasure to ride.”

“This is a challenging test for an event horse,” she says. “He’s 14 and has got an amazing, amazing brain, so it’s fine, but I think with a hot horse of a more Thoroughbred type it would be a very tricky test. The difficulty of it is very high. But at the end of the day, it’s used for World Championships and Olympics – we do need to be at the top of our game.”

For Gemma, who last rode on a British championship team at the 2018 World Equestrian Games, Aachen has long been the ultimate goal with this horse.

“We’ve been working towards this – to be honest, it’s been absolutely the plan set out since the beginning of 2025, and I literally worked out a plan for the whole of that year and then the whole of this year leading up to it, and we’ve pulled it off, so that’s cool,” she says.

In doing so, she doesn’t just make a long-awaited comeback – she also takes on the hugely pressurised pathfinder role, which is a job she relishes and has made sure to prepare for.

“I knew that if I was going to be on the team, that that’s where I’d be. I’ve done it before; they know that I can do it, and the other three aren’t going to go in the pathfinder role, so I’ve actually trained myself a few times this year to go out on course with no information at all on the course [from other riders and rounds]. I did it at Royal Jump with him, and I did it at Burgham with Chilli Knight, all just in the thought that that might happen. It’s just about training your mind.”

New Zealand’s individual rider Sam Lissington holds seventh place overnight on a score of 29.7 with ten-year-old Lucas Stone, the winner of October’s Strzegom CCI4*-L.

“I’m stoked with him,” she says. “He’s a little bit of an anxious person, and that’s definitely by far the biggest atmosphere he’s ever experienced – it’s about as big as it gets. So for him to stay with me as he did, as only a ten-year-old, and after only eighteen months together, is a big deal.”

Lucas Stone stepped into the game for Aachen after Sam had to withdraw her top ride, Ricker Ridge Sooty GNZ, from contention in June due to an injury.

“He’s got big shoes to fill, and I’d have loved to be sitting here on a horse I’ve been riding for ten years, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, it was the young gun that had to come through, and come through he did.”

It has been, she continues, “a busy four months. We were on form last year with multiple horses, and then all of a sudden it feels like all of that gets thrown out the window, and it feels like every single event you do is going to be the one that your selection depends on. Then you do one well, and you’re like, ‘shit, okay, I can’t make a mistake at the next one, or the next one.’ So it’s been a lot of pressure event to event on every horse, including him in case he needed to step in. In the end he did.”

Switzerland’s enormously experienced Robin Godel and Grandeur de Lully CH once again demonstrated why they’ve been such lynchpins of championship teams, putting up a score of 30.1 for overnight eleventh and team fourth, while Australia’s Olivia Barton and her homebred APH Sodoku are ninth on a 30.6 – a huge personal best at four-star and above for the ten-year-old. Germany’s Libussa Lübbeke and Caramia FRH round out the top ten on a 31.3.

Phillip Dutton got the US campaign started today as the fourth in the ring with Ann Lapides, Ann Jones, Neill Sites and Caroline Moran’s Denim. The score, a 32.6, was higher than what we’ve come to anticipate from Denim, who’s average a sub-30 consistently, according to EquiRatings. A better mark, Phillip said, comes down to needing more energy and power from Denim. But he remained positive and complimentary of his horse.

“He was pretty much mistake-free,” he said. “I got off the centerline a little bit at the entrance, but then the rest of it was good. I mean, he needs a little bit more power and energy to get a big score, I think, and but he was real professional in there. He was on the money for everything that I asked him to do, so I was really proud of him for that.”

Phillip is just behind Caroline Pamukcu in 15th overnight.

Caroline Pamukcu was the second in the US order with her own and Deniz Pamucku, Sherrie Martin and Mollie Hoff’s HSH Blake. A 32.6 was not the score Caroline had worked to get today after a couple of bobbles in the canter work inflated an otherwise true-to-Blake stylish test. The counter-canter movement elicited fours from all three judges and her second flying change also got dinged — a frustrating result no doubt, but Caroline responded maturely.

“Obviously, I’m pretty disappointed with because I know we both could do better — or I could do better, not him,” she said. “I didn’t give him the ride I wanted to today, but it is a sport, and that’s the fun thing about a sport. I’ll go back and reflect. You know, there’s always a lot of things, but I’ve got an incredible team at home and with our federation. They gave me all the opportunities to do the best we can today. Sometimes it just falls short. I’ll obviously go home, work harder, and then come back swinging again. He picked up left lead instead of the right lead. I’m not quite sure. You know, shit happens. It definitely was a stupid mistake, but stuff happens.”

Caroline is in 14th overnight and poised to climb her way up with two strong jumping rounds — a feat Blake has accomplished many times throughout his very successful career.

Canada’s sole representative, Jessica Phoenix, had a banner day with Sharon Hall and Makayla Rydzik’s Fluorescent Adolescent. At 18 years young, “Lacey” delivered a five-star personal best and earned a 35.1 to sit in 25th overnight. Jessie credits some recent work done with four-time dressage Olympian Ashley Holzer for helping Lacey (and Jessie) understand balance better, which builds confidence. Interestingly, Lacey also seems to prefer dressaging on grass — most of her personal bests have come when she competes on grass.

“Ashley has really helped me understand where I need to be with my own position to help the horses balance themselves better, and she’s just helped me get control over a lot of those little things where it just gives me and the horses so much confidence when we’re in the ring executing the movements,” Jessie elaborated. “I think that was really what showed today with Lacey. Every time she went to get a little bit too onward or lose her balance, I was able to just calmly put her back together, and then she’s such a beautiful mover — she can really shine when she’s in the right balance.”

Tomorrow’s second day of dressage will kick off at 9.30 a.m. local time (that’s 8.30 a.m. BST or 5.30 a.m. EST) with Moroccan individual Noor Slaoui and Legende P first in the ring. Like today, it’s going to be a serious scorcher tomorrow: temperatures are set to hit 36 degrees Celsius – over 100 Fahrenheit, if you, too, hate numbers – and have already necessitated a scheduling change for the pure dressage competitors, who tackle the Special tomorrow. Further to veterinary advice, we’re told, the eventing dressage schedule, with its much shorter test, will remain unchanged and access to cooling areas with misting fans will be ensured.

The line-up tomorrow will bring us the third and fourth rider rotations, plus another thirteen individual competitors, and by any metric it’s a fairly jam-packed sort of day, with many of the frontrunners of this week’s competition yet to come. You can check out the times and the line-up in full here or, if you’re planning your sleep schedule around tuning in for our three remaining US riders, here’s when you can catch them:

• Boyd Martin and Cooley Nutcracker – 10.50 a.m. local time/9.50 a.m. BST/4.50 a.m. EST
• Tamie Smith and Lillet 3 (individuals) – 14.51 p.m. local time/13.51 p.m. BST/8.51 a.m. EST
• Will Coleman and Diabolo – 15.12 p.m. local time/14.12 p.m. BST/9.12 a.m. EST

We’ll have plenty more coverage to bring you, both at the end of the day’s competition and well before then; make sure you’re following along on our Instagram, too, for plenty of BTS content, rider interviews, and much, much more. Until tomorrow: stay cool, and Go Eventing.

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