The USA arrive in Aachen as reigning Paralympic champions and the best para dressage nation in the world, with combinations including Fiona Howard and Diamond Dunes
Britains golden era in para dressage already feels a distant memory and the World Para Dressage Championships in Aachen won’t be the place it returns.
Once untouchable – team champions at every Paralympics until Paris – Britain finished sixth in Paris then fourth at last summer’s Ermelo Europeans. But the team in Ermelo went closer than most would’ve thought, finishing just 0.7 points off the bronze medal spot, buoyed by an impressive championships debut from Jemima Green and Fantabulous, who took individual bronze in all three grade II tests.
But close only counts for so much and the honest read is that Britain are no longer among the undisputed favourites for team honours. A podium finish in Aachen looks like a stretch.
That’s partly down to who’s coming back. The USA arrive as reigning Paralympic champions and the best para dressage nation in the world – and three of the four combinations that swept five golds in Paris return unchanged for Aachen.
Rebecca Hart (Floratina), Fiona Howard (Diamond Dunes) and Kate Shoemaker (Vianne) return, while Marie Vonderheyden takes over the ride on Fan Tastico H – US rider Roxanne Trunnell’s Paris grade I silver-medal horse – having partnered him since early 2025. If Aachen goes to form, gold should be heading back across the Atlantic.
Behind them, it should be the two nations who shared the top two Ermelo steps. Germany bring back both their Ermelo grade winners in the same combinations – Heidemarie Dresing and Poesie 143 in grade II, Regine Mispelkamp and Bayala in grade V – giving them a proven core to build a team score around.
The Netherlands counter with strength in even greater depth – Rixt van der Horst and Eisma’s Royal Fonq NOP return as reigning grade III European champions, Britney de Jong and Caramba NOP as Ermelo’s grade V grand prix B winners, and crucially Sanne Voets is back aboard Demantur after sitting out Ermelo, adding a Paralympic medal-winning combination the Dutch didn’t even need at Europeans.
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Denmark, Ermelo’s bronze medallists, look the shakiest of the European top three. Katrine Kristensen returns on Goerklintgaards Quater, but Tobias Thorning Jørgensen has switched from multiple-championship-medallist Jolene Hill onto Blue Hors Zackorado. With further changes elsewhere in the team, it’s harder to read their medal chances.
Para dressage World Championship team medal predictions
(Image credit: Future)
Para dressage World Championship individual medal favourites
Fiona Howard (USA)
(Image credit: FEI/Liz Gregg)
Fresh from a hospitalisation for kidney surgery last December, Fiona’s season took a record-breaking detour. While her triple Paralympic gold partner Diamond Dunes stayed off the CPEDI circuit, she rode US team-mate and coach Kate Shoemaker’s Vianne just days before March’s Wellington CPEDI and broke her own grade II freestyle world record – set on Diamond Dunes in 2025 at 83.27% – with an 84.934% score on a horse she’d never competed before.
Back on Diamond Dunes for Aachen, the pair picked up where they left off: 78.1% in the grand prix A and 80.83% in the grand prix B on their return in July.
Rihards Snikus (AUT)
(Image credit: FEI/Leanjo de Koster)
Rihards and grade I ride King Of The Dance made history at the 2022 worlds, winning Latvia’s first-ever equestrian gold, before adding individual and freestyle Paralympic titles in Paris, and double gold at last summer’s Europeans.
Now 18, the gelding hasn’t competed at all in 2026, leaving his form for Aachen a genuine unknown after such a long absence. US team members Marie Vonderheyden and Fan Tastico H – world number two in the grade and unbeaten in the freestyle, bar one runner-up finish this season – look well placed to capitalise if the champion isn’t fully sharp.
Kate Shoemaker (USA)
(Image credit: FEI/Liz Gregg)
Newly installed as world number one – dethroning long-time team-mate Fiona Howard’s 15-month reign – Kate has been near-unbeatable in 2026, winning almost every start across Wellington, Aachen and Aalborg, with only a single freestyle retirement blotting the record. On that run, she was also a winner in an able-bodied inter I test (67.29%).
Kate bought Vianne (below) outright at the end of 2024, after taking over the ride from Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour, then lent the mare to her US team-mate Fiona for a week in March, so that she could go on her record-breaking run.
Rixt Van Der Horset (NED)
(Image credit: FEI/Leanjo de Koster)
Runners-up in all three grade III tests in Paris, Rixt and Eisma’s Royal Fonq NOP (below) have kicked on since, sweeping all their tests at last summer’s Europeans. Their one defeat of the season came in the grand prix A at Hagen last month. They were beaten by Denmark’s Tobias Thorning Jørgensen and Blue Hors Zackorado – who will run them close in Aachen – but they responded by winning both the B and freestyle there, the latter their best score of the season at 85.69%.
Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).
