The 2026 Eventing World Championships took place in Aachen, Germany as part of the FEI World Championships (11-23 August). The eventing competition began with the first horse inspection on Wednesday 12 August, followed by two days of dressage (13-14 August), cross-country (15 August) and the final showjumping phase, plus team and individual medal ceremonies on Sunday 16 August.
H&H eventing editor Pippa Roome was on the ground in Aachen, walked the cross-country course and interviewed the riders in the mixed zone after every performance. She was supported in providing our live news reports service by H&H’s wider editorial team, based back in the UK, who brought you all the stories behind the scores throughout the competition. Pippa's complete Aachen report will be in Horse & Hound magazine, on sale Thursday 20 August.
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This competition will feel reassuringly familiar to eventing fans, as it follows the traditional team three-day event format, unlike the Olympics.
Teams and individuals
● A maximum of five horse and rider combinations can take part from each nation.
● A team consists of three or four combinations, with the best three scores to count. A nation fielding the full five quota of pairs will be represented by a team of four and one individual.
● Nations not represented by a team can field one or two individual combinations.
● Every rider who is in a team is also competing as an individual.
The phases
● The competition officially starts with the horse inspection on Wednesday, 12 August, when the ground jury – president Anne-Mette Binder (Denmark), Peter Gray (Canada) and Joanne Jarden (Ireland) – and veterinary delegate look at each horse and assess its fitness to take part.
● On Thursday, 13 and Friday, 14 August, each combination will take to the arena in turn and perform the Olympic short dressage test, which includes movements such as half-pass in trot and canter, rein-back and flying changes.
● On Saturday, 15 August, every horse and rider tackle the cross-country course, designed by Giuseppe della Chiesa.
The course has to have between 38 and 42 jumping efforts (Giuseppe says there are 42 efforts on the direct route), with a maximum fence height of 1.20m (1.40m with brush) and a maximum top spread of 1.80m.
The course will be between 5,600 metres and 5,800 metres and should be ridden at 570 metres per minute, giving an optimum time between 9min 50sec and 10min 10sec.
● The final day, Sunday, 16 August, starts with another horse inspection.
This is followed by the showjumping, in reverse order, over a course of 11 to 13 numbered obstacles (16 jumping efforts), designed by Frank Rothenberger. There is a maximum fence height of 1.30m, and the optimum time will be set for combinations to tackle the track at 375 metres per minute.
Scoring
● The combination with the lowest score at the end of the event wins the competition individually. Each pair receives a mark for their dressage test and the aim after that is not to add any more penalties.
● A team consists of three or four combinations, with the best three scores to count and the team with the lowest total score taking the gold medal.
Teams cannot mix and match between combinations for scores from each phase – the final team score consists of the nation’s best three total scores across all phases (so if a horse does a brilliant dressage test, but is eliminated cross-country, the team cannot count its dressage score and discard its cross-country score).
Veterinary commission: Friedrich-Wilhelm Hanbücken (GER) (President), Kirste Neil (AUS), Juliana Ramalho De Freitas (BRA)
Veterinary delegate: Mark Sinnott (GBR)
Why is it not the Aachen World Equestrian Games?
Aachen previously hosted the FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) in 2006. WEG brought together the World Championships in multiple different equestrian sports every four years between 1990 and 2018. Financial challenges associated with hosting so many disciplines at a single venue proved prohibitive and so since 2022 each of the disciplines have have their own World Championships. For 2026, Aachen was granted the World Championships for six disciplines, so is running a two-week combined World Championships – but it is not a WEG.
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