Who will be the LA 2028 Olympic eventing medallists? It sounds a long way away, with the Paris Games barely in our rear view mirror, but we all know how quickly an Olympic cycle goes round.
Sam has used a metric called the EquiRatings Elo, which he describes as “our most powerful metric for predicting consistency and quality. Every international horse has an Elo rating. Horses lose points when beaten by lower-rated competitors and gain points when defeating higher-rated ones. The best horses consistently beat top competition.”
At the start of 2021 – so three and a half years before Paris, just as we’re now three and a half years before LA – the horses who went on to take the top four individual places at the 2024 Olympics were all rated among the top performers in their age group by Elo.
Eventual gold medallist FischerChipmunk FRH (Michael Jung, Germany) was the top-rated 13-year-old. Silver medallist Shadow Man (Chris Burton, Australia) was the highest-rated 11-year-old. Bronze medallist London 52 (Laura Collett, Great Britain) was the second best 12-year-old (behind Andrew Hoy’s double Tokyo medallist Vassily De Lassos), while fourth-placed JL Dublin (Tom McEwen) was fourth in the 10-year-old rankings.
So can we use this to predict the LA 2028 Olympic eventing medallists?
Sam has detailed for us the top horses in the 10- to 13-year-old categories right now by Elo, who could be in the running to be on the podium in Los Angeles. They are…
Zaragoza, best 12-year-old – the ride of Gaspard Maksud of France, who is based in Britain. She is a European team bronze medallist from 2023, who was eighth individually then and sixth at the 2022 worlds. Passed over for Paris selection last season, she had her revenge when sixth at Burghley.
HSH Blake, best 10-year-old – a young star for the USA’s Caroline Martin, who was the 2023 Pan Am champion and very much a talking horse going into Paris, albeit without huge mileage, which is perhaps why the pair ultimately slightly underperformed there in the first two phases for 37th. That experience will have brought both horse and rider on hugely and they’ll be on home soil in 2028.
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It’s fascinating to wonder if Graffalo, Zaragoza, Nickel and Blake could be in the running to be LA 2028 Olympic eventing medallists. So much can vary and change in horse sport, from injury to changing riders (note both Shadow Man and JL Dublin had different riders in Paris to at the start of 2021), but these metrics can also be powerful indicators.
Who do you think will win the medals in 2028? Send your thoughts to hhletters@futurenet.com for a chance to be published in Horse & Hound, including your name and address (town and county will be published). Letters may be edited for clarity and length.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
