April 6, 2026 
This is the week I went to Miami, this is a tale of two leagues.
It all started with The Tube.
The Tubes started arriving the last week of WEF.
The Tube was heavy, made of some kind of metal, and so satisfying—solid and cool to the touch—to hold in your hand. It came in a box that said, in all caps, “THE MOMENT JUMPING CHANGES FOREVER.”
I didn’t know what The Tube was (it was supposed to represent a jumping pole, I found out later), I only knew it was like ASMR taking this tube apart. The metal clinked brightly as you unscrewed the end and slid out a long strip of metal, a sound like a sword coming unsheathed. The strip gave you a date and location in downtown Miami and told you to be there.
Oh, hell yeah, I’ll be there, I responded mentally and then responded physically by doing things like purchasing a dress and asking everyone in town where their Tube was and won’t they be there and laughing and averting my eyes in embarrassed pity when they said, “What are you talking about?”
In truth, I knew very little of what I was talking about, but I did know that anyone who is anyone at the top of the sport was going to Miami on March 30th and in addition to all those people, there was me.
This was the official launch party for the PJL, the Premier Jumping League.
“Another new league? Exactly what the sport needs,” says someone sarcastically, but I know the words and I know the tone—it’s the one we use when we really, truly, but secretly, hope the solution will finally arrive.
The solution for show jumping.
We all know we need a solution. We do this all day, every day, spending every dime, confused and frustrated by the expense, the calendar, the financials.
And how we love it! Ours is a monomania, ours is a tightly-held belief that there’s nothing else or better to be doing. Ours is a passion that is all-encompassing, a devotion to the sport that makes us long to inject it, like an opiate in a syringe, into everyone we meet.
Because there’s really nothing greater than this. So how come the whole rest of the world doesn’t know it?
The PJL wants the whole rest of the world to know it.
They’ve begun by recruiting most of the top riders to their vision. I was delighted to be in the room with no less than five of the top ten in the world. I was slightly less excited to be in the room with loads of supermodels and influencers, none of whom I could identify, except by the flood of photographers that surrounded them when they arranged themselves aesthetically in front of the glowing PJL sign that adorned the wall that separated the party-goers on the patio from the Bay of Biscayne.
You can also recognize them by how seriously they take their selfies. DO NOT attempt a photobomb, I learned that quickly. I also learned that influencers know exactly how to eliminate a photobomb with careful angles, for, despite my huge melon head (lots of brains), I didn’t see myself at all on her screen, despite positioning myself inches from her face.
The thing that was wrong is I came to the party as myself, and this was a Miami party. I was expecting to nerd out on rules and regulations, sport and competition format. Everyone else came to look good (and wow did they!) and talk about I-don’t-know-what and create loads of hype.
The next day I actually tried to object, saying what kind of party was this anyway? Then it was pointed out to me, mostly by myself, that the PJL had already succeeded in obsessing me, so job well done!
Because even if the PJL cannot explain exactly what it is yet—and I’m told this is because they are keeping their cards close to the vest, rolling it out slowly, like a tease—it’s raison d’etre is more than clear: to commercialize the sport, reel in mainstream sponsors, serve fans—both the already-existing ones and those they hope to convert—and to create a big-money pro league where the best of the best compete based on merit.
Here’s what I know: 16 teams, 14 shows over seven months, beginning in North America, moving to Europe, and ending in the Middle East, if geopolitical events do not intervene.
And we know the start date, because at the entrance to the party was a giant countdown clock: 352 days 19 hours 55 minutes and 22 seconds.
I did the math (ok, fine, AI did it) and that puts the start date at March 18, 2027.
Then I started doing some other math. This was a few days later. If we have a start date in late March and end in October and there are 14 shows, that would mean two shows a month. We are assured no major championships will be affected or significant Nations Cups or the World Cup or the Longines League of Nations, so in our cluttered show calendar what does this mean?
And then it occurred to me that perhaps I was not at a party at all, but was privy to another occurrence altogether and this was—a declaration of war.
Ha! I’m not gonna say it doesn’t delight me, because I consider myself, above all, a competitor, and as such, I’m ready to see this whole thing go down. Are we about to enter the most exciting phase of top-level jumping our sport has ever seen?
And who is in the crosshairs? Perhaps that other league that spans the globe and had the start to its season a few days later on Miami Beach?
Maybe I’m addicted to the drama, but we all know that one of the founders of the PJL was once involved in the Global Champions League.
Is it a competing vision? Some would say yes. But before I say anything, I have to cop to the fact that I am mostly unfamiliar with the GCL, having been to only one of the shows twice (Miami) and because of its media being behind a paywall, I’ve only ever live-streamed one event, the five-star in Morocco where Anastasia Nielson took the win.
Which brings me to the other half of the week, when I went to catch the show on the beach.
It seems to me that the Longines Global Champions Tour was built on someone’s fever dream, an aesthete’s hallucinatory vision. Take the beauty of horses and a sport of power and athleticism and build popup rings in the most unlikely of places, watch possibility overcome impossibility, and capture it all in glorious photos.
And don’t forget to add in some clever reels (the social media team is top-notch).
The beach was beautiful, the white sand meeting the turquoise water meeting the blue of the sky. It was warm, but a breeze met us from across the water, making it a comfortable day to enjoy sport. Scantily-clad beachgoers hung against the short wall of the ring, drinking in the sight of sporthorses plying their trade where they expected to find only sun and sand. It was a setting to delight the eye.
The ring, being built from scratch, was small, although I read that this year it had been built wider than usual. The course was twisty, overlapping itself to fit in the ring, and not built too high, which resulted in a rather boring first round and a large number of clears—thirteen.
The jumpoff was better, as the organizers remove any jumps not involved, so the spectators get an exciting and fast final round where a gallop is possible in the opened space. The win went, for the third time on this first leg of the tour, to Katrin Eckermann (she loves Miami!) aboard Iron Dames Dialou Blue PS.
I left determined to try to get to know the GCL, now in its 20th year, better, because, as sportswriter and columnist, my community is depending on me to keep them well-informed. That means—such a pity!—attending even more shows.
And also—I’m eager to add “war correspondent” to my resume.
