July 31, 2026 
For show jumping fans in 2026, the season’s summer dog days will mean just one thing: It’s time to breakout the popcorn.
Not only do we have the upcoming FEI Jumping World Championships to look forward to in August, but now, for only the third time in history, a Live Contender who could win the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping.
That rider is, of course, Germany’s Richard Vogel, who, after taking back-to-back wins in the Dutch Masters in March and CHIO Aachen in May with the 14-year-old Westphalian stallion United Touch S, now heads to the Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ with a €1 million question on his mind.
Can he become only the second rider after Scott Brash (GBR) to win show jumping’s most coveted prize?
For Horse Bytes contributor Sadhbh Stassin Peelo, who weighed-in last September after the $5 million Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ CPKC ‘International’ Grand Prix, presented by Rolex, failed to produce a single double-clear effort, that answer was decidedly no—though not for want of trying.
“In the current format of our sport, that I think is so oversaturated with 5* show jumping, we are not going to see another Grand Slam winner,” predicted Stassin Peelo, who admitted she had been pulling for then-Live Contender Martin Fuchs.
“Seeing how difficult it is at the [Masters] events at each leg, how hard it is to win a single one, how much pressure is put on the riders to do so, and then how much distraction in the year. Like, if they were the only four events in the year, I would say I think we will see it again, because all the top riders would put everything [into it] like they’re a championship, ” she continued.
“But there’s so much dispersion in the sport that I just don’t know how we are going to see another Grand Slam winner. I think Scott [Brash] is forever [uncatchable], in my opinion.”
Nearly one year later, the stakes are, somehow, even higher, with the ‘dispersion’ question Stassin Peelo references is in full effect: in the span of less than a month, Vogel is eyeing not only a World Championship podium but a potential Rolex Grand Slam win.
Aside from Scott Brash and Hello Sanctos—who completed their triplet in 2014/2015—only one other rider knows the current pressure Vogel faces. In 2023, McLain Ward found himself with two Major wins in the bag with the then-17-year-old HH Azur. Ward and the legendary mare took consecutive victories at CHI Geneva and the Dutch Masters, but couldn’t replicate their success in the sprawling grass stadium at CHIO Aachen the following July.
Though she retired shortly after her final Major appearance, HH Azur continues to rank among the top-10, winningest show jumping horses of all time, according to Jumpr. Equally relevant: United Touch S, still three years her junior at the time of her retirement, already ties HH Azur’s record at eight.
Despite his string’s enviously deep bench—with Claudio winning the 1.60m CANA Cup at Spruce Meadows last September, and Gangster Montdesir taking home the AON Grand Prix at Spruce in June—Vogel recently told The New York Times that it’s been his plan to save United Touch S for this moment all along.
And the games are about to begin.
As members of the stacked German team for the FEI Jumping World Championships at CHIO Aachen (August 19-23), Vogel and United will have just three weeks between that Championship and the CPKC International, Presented by Rolex, on September 13. But the German rider doesn’t seem worried.
“Last year, in Aachen we went double clear the first two rounds, but then we had two rails in the jump-off, so that wasn’t our best performance, but then we became European Champion just three weeks after,” he told The New York Times. “He was almost peaking better after Aachen.”
What’s more, for a horse whose surreal scope and stride length can often make the sport’s highest jumps look like a warm-up class, United has proven he can win Rolex Grands Prix both indoors and out. And while he’s never put in a double-clear performance in two previous attempts at this particular Major, he’s only ever dropped a single rail.
Could 2026 be the year that Richard Vogel makes an optimist out of show jumping cynics everywhere? We can’t wait to watch him try.
