Dressage-News

Nov. 13, 2025

The inaugural dressage US Open caps its year-long competition with the CDI5* final at Desert International Horse Park in Thermal, California Friday with the Grand Prix of 14 rider and horse combinations book ended by Ebeling father and son competing for the biggest slice of $200,000 in prize money. The deciding Freestyle is scheduled for Saturday.

Two of the  top scoring final riders, Anna Marek on Fayvel and Benjamin Ebeling on Bellena, are based in Florida with a third top scorer, Felicitas Hendricks of Hagen, Germany, qualified on her Drombusch OLD at the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Florida.

Riders with the highest scores, Christian Simonson on Indian Rock (81.405%) who is seeking to represent the U.S. at the World Cup Final in Fort Worth, Texas next April competed in only one qualifier, while Kevin Kohmann on Dünensee (79.240%), a two-time World Cup Final contestant, tied for third in the Open standings opted to compete instead at a €300,000 (US$345,000) World Cup event in Mexico a week earlier. So, too, did Germany’s Evelyn Eger who placed sixth in the standings after competing at Wellington’s Global circuit over the winter.

The format for qualifying was based on placings in Freestyles at CDI3* or higher. The top 18 already split $50,000 with $200,000 remaining for this weekend’s final.

The Grand Prix starts at 4:45pm local time (7:45pm US Eastern time/01:45 Saturday Central European time).

First to go is Jan Ebeling on Jubi’s Tenacity and the last in the lineup at 6:57pm (9:57 pm Eastern) is his son, Benjamin Ebeling on Bellena.

The complete lineup:

The competition will be streamed live on Clipmyhorse.tv.