British squad for home leg of Nations Cup named
The British riders who will make up the Team GBR squad for the home leg of the Nations Cup have been revealed.
The Furusiyya FEI 5* Nations Cup will take place at Hickstead, during the Royal International Horse Show, on Friday 31 July, kicking off at 2.15pm.
The squad selected is as follows:
Holly Gillott from Loughborough, Leics, with her own 10-year-old liver chestnut gelding Dougie Douglas.
Ben Maher from Bishop’s Stortford, Herts, with Tatiana Korsakova’s 10-year-old chestnut mare Diva II.
Jessica Mendoza from Chippenham, Wilts, on the 14-year-old brown mare Spirit T owned by Sarah Mendoza.
Michael Whitaker from Notts, and the 10-year-old grey stallion Cassionato owned by Beverley Widdowson.
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
Guy Williams based in France with his own and Charlotte Baines’ 15-year-old chestnut gelding Titus II.
Britain is in division one of the series with Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
Britain currently sits in fifth on the table after five legs of the competition. The team picked up the full 100 points winning in Rome (21 May) and Rotterdam (18 June) so have 200 points.
France heads the division on 310 points, with Belgium in second and Sweden third. The next leg is in Falsterbo, Sweden, on Friday (10 July).
William Funnell (Billy Congo), Yazmin Pinchen (Ashkari), Laura Renwick (Bintang II), Michael Whitaker (Calcourt Falklund) and William Whitaker (Fandango III) are the named combinations for that competition.
The squads have been chosen by British Equestrian Federation world class performance manager Di Lampard. They are key competitions that will aid her in her selections for the British showjumping team in the run up to the European Championships in Aachen next month (11-23 August).
At the Europeans Britain must finish in the top three of the unqualified nations to secure the country’s spot at Rio 2016, after failing to qualify at last year’s World Equestrian Games.
The class will be shown live on www.feitv.org.
Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now
A graduate of Exeter University, Amy joined our news team from Redpin Publishing in 2008 as news writer. She was promoted to deputy news editor in May 2013 and became news editor in April 2015. She left Horse & Hound in March 2016 to take up an editorial position in Dubai.