Dressage Column: The Year Ahead

The Year Ahead

By George Williams

It’s another even-numbered year. Of course, if you’ve been following me you know what that means: It’s either an Olympics or a World Championships! The last time the Summer and Winter Games were held the same year was in 1992. Since then, technically there has been an Olympics every even-numbered year.

As my childhood sports were skiing and riding, in February you will find me glued to Milano Cortina 2026, also known as the XXV Winter Olympics. Specifically, it will be the downhill and super-G. Forty-one-year-old Lindsey Vonn, who made her Olympic debut 24 years ago in 2002, may make history by winning an Olympic medal. Just by virtue of competing gives her the record for unprecedented longevity in the sport. It was 16 years ago that she won gold at the Vancouver Olympics.

Beyond skiing, I’ll be watching the buildup for the World Championships being held in Aachen. Dressage starts with the Grand Prix on August 11 and will no doubt be a great preview for the 2028 summer Olympics. It will have been 44 years since they were last held in Los Angeles.

In 2026 I expect all eyes will be on Justin Verboomen. In what seems like a nanosecond, he has jumped to the number-one spot on the FEI World Ranking list. His stallion, Zonik Plus, has shot to stardom just as fast and is now leading the FEI Ranking List for dressage horses as well. Zonic Plus has joined a short but impressive list of horses who has had a positive influence on our sport, capturing the heart of most anyone who watches. That list includes horses such as Totilas, about whom, when I searched him on the internet, AI said “revolutionized the sport with his exceptional talent.” This is actually quite a fair assessment, because at the European Championships in 2009, Totilas was the first horse in history to break the 90% barrier.

The other horse that immediately comes to mind is Valegro, “the horse of the new millennium,” as described by Christopher Hector in The Horse magazine. “Every now and then you find yourself witness to a turning point in history—so it was at the European Dressage Championships in 2011, it was the competition that heralded the arrival of a new superstar combination.” Sadly, we recently lost Valegro, along with his 2012 gold medal teammate and friend Uthopia, last November.

As you may have noticed, the European Championships have proven to be the showcase where some of the equine stars of our sport have truly demonstrated their full potential. The 2025 European Championships were no exception; it was one of the best and most exciting competitions we’ve seen. In my opinion, that same quality and excitement will be there this summer at the 2026 World Championships.

The big question: Who will be there for the U.S.? The answer will come slowly over the next few months and, indeed, it will make the winter season’s Florida and California CDIs fun to watch as this portion of the qualifying process comes to an end. When it does, up to 15 athletes will be invited to compete head-to-head at the USEF Dressage Grand Prix National Championship, newly revamped as a standalone event to be held May 13–17 at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Florida. The Grand Prix Championship will serve as an observation event, meaning that it is not a Selection Trials.

Shortly after the Grand Prix Championship, up to eight athletes will be selected to travel to Europe for further observation events. One of the pluses of the World Championships versus the Olympics is that a team consists of four combinations with a drop score. Thus, only the top three scores count towards the team medal. Therefore, ultimately four combinations and one reserve will be selected to represent the U.S. at the World Championships.

In the meantime, and not to be overshadowed, the FEI World Cup Finals are April 8–12 in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Dickies Arena. CDI-Ws are qualifiers for the FEI World Cup Finals. The first one for the North American League was the Devon CDI-W, followed in 2025 by Myakka City, Lerma, St. Vincent, Mexico, Toronto, Ocala and Thermal.

Many of our Grand Prix athletes have set the World Cup Finals as one of their goals. As of this writing, Kevin Kohmann is leading in the standings and Ben Ebeling is second, and Canadian riders Camille Carier Bergeron and Britney Frazier-Beaulieu are third and fourth, respectively. Christian Simonson rounds out the top five. The second five out of a total of 10 North American League CDI-Ws take place January 7–March 15 when we will know what three athletes will represent the North American League at the FEI World Cup Finals. A lot can happen between now and then.

No matter how you look at it, I don’t think the first quarter of 2026 will be boring—and for that matter, the second quarter won’t be either. Then Aachen is in the third quarter, and the US Open of Dressage in the fourth—they say time flies when you’re having fun!