Dressage-News

Oct. 27, 2025

US Equestrian announced revisions of dressage Pathway Programs including updated ranking lists ahead of the 2026 World Championships scheduled for Aachen, Germany next August and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

The Pre-Elite, Development, Emerging Young Horse and Youth athletes lists were. updated (see separate report) based on competition results within the past 12 months. No rider and horse combinations were named to the Elite program.

“We have worked very collaboratively with the athletes in our programs to identify objective performance targets, which continue to drive our training and competition preparation, while also focusing on individual goals for combinations to push for improvement and depth across our entire pathway,” said Christine Traurig, Technical Advisor & Chef d’Equipe and Development and Young Horse Coach.

“While some of the targets may seem bold, our coaching staff and the athletes agree we must hold ourselves to a realistic but high standard to ensure we meet the quality of performance on the field of play which will help us build momentum and success over the next three years. We always have a podium finish at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games as our north star and feel confident we are moving the needle in the right direction to produce consistency and success on the road to LA.”

Christine along with assistant coaches Olivia LaGoy Weltz and Günter Seidel and George Williams, high performance advisor and youth coach, and USEF staff produced the plans for 2026 and beyond.

Targets include a top finish in the Nations Cup at Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Florida at the end of February, placings of U.S. riders in the top 10 at the World Cup Final in Ft. Worth, Texas in April and in the top six teams at the World Championships. A focus will be on increasing pipeline depth of established Grand Prix combinations through participation in international Nations Cups.

Expectations for program participants competing at the Grand Prix level include displaying ability to score at least 71% or above for the Pre-Elite program, while focusing on combinations with the ability to score above 74% progressing toward the Elite program.

Grand Prix development program combinations over the summer will focus on gaining experience in the Nations Cup series that is centered in Europe after the single competition in Wellington with the objective of finishing within the top five in team competitions, and other CDIs in Europe.

For the emerging young horse and youth level athletes, performance markers will include the Under-25 and Young Rider European tours, the Festival of Champions, World Breeding Championships and North American Youth Championships.

Podium finishes at the Pan American Games in 2027 and the Los Angeles Games are subsequent targets, what the federation called “the driving focus of performance planning and execution over the remaining three years of the current quadrennial period.”

USEF program hosted six training/evaluation sessions along with home visits, and seven training series opportunities open to all FEI levels in 2025.

The program will be expanded in 2026 with the calendar announced by mid-December.

The pathway programs are sponsored in part by Akiko Yamazaki and her family’s Four Winds Farm, whose support is instrumental in fostering the development of dressage talent in the United States.