USA’s Christian Simonson on Indian Rock Meteoric Rise to 15th in World, Highest North American
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Dec. 31, 2025
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
Christian Simonson and his performances on Indian Rock as the outstanding American dressage partnership of 2025 has led to a meteoric rise to 15th in the world rankings for the 23-year-old rider.
With six victories in six Grand Prix starts and the highest CDI Grand Prix score by an United States rider in almost three years, Christian goes into 2026 as the top ranked American at No. 15, up from 151st a month earlier.
Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu of Canada also showed a huge increase in ranking, up to 36th from 184th over the month with results on Jaccardo.
Christian Simonson, based in Wellington, Florida and the 12-year-old stallion Indian Rock posted a best Freestyle score of 81.405% that was the highest since his coach, three-time Olympian Adrienne Lyle, and her team mate, six-time Olympian Steffen Peters, posted higher results in early 2023.
Christian and Indian Rock, owned by successful Florida entrepreneur Heidi Humphries’ Zen Elite Equestrian, were named U.S. Dressage Federation Grand Prix Champion of the Year with Adrienne and Hussmanns Top Gun awarded the Prix St. Georges title.
The rider’s short term goal is to qualify for April’s World Cup Final in Fort Worth, Texas where the dressage championship is sponsored by Zen Elite.
With two victories in qualifiers he is currently ranked third with three more qualifiers scheduled for Wellington’s Global Dressage Festival that could give him one more result to take one of the three places in the Final assigned to North America.
Brittany, who competed on the Canadian team at the Tokyo Olympics on her now retired All In, first showed Jaccardo at Small Tour 2 1/2 years ago.
She and the KWPN gelding that is owned by Canadian Jill Irving is 12 years old as of Jan. 1.
The duo graduated to Grand Prix in August, 2025 with six Big Tour scores since. She stands fourth with 37 points in the World Cup North American League, behind U.S. riders Kevin Kohmann (52 points), Benjamin Ebeling (49) and Christian Simonson (40).
Brittany is in Wellington for the winter with the possibility of making it into the top three and become the first Canadian to go to a World Cup Final since 2013.
Rankings for North Americans in the top 50 as of the end of 2025 are: Christian Simonson (15), Benjamin Ebeling (22), Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu (36), Kevin Kohmann (37), Anna Marek (48) and Marcus Orlob (50). All are U.S. riders except for Brittany who is Canadian.
