August 13, 2026 
It’s a long competition for team results in eventing. With three phases over four days, every tenth of a point can have rippling consequences on not only the individual medals but also on the hopes of a nation. Plans and strategies aren’t hatched in the moment.
“We’ve been working towards this since the beginning of 2025,” Gemma Stevens, riding Flash Cooley for Great Britain, explained. “I literally worked out a plan for the whole of that year and then the whole this year leading up.”
As the first to go for the hot favorites in Team Great Britain, Stevens had the unenviable task of laying down a score that gave some breathing room to her teammates. A bobble on the final centerline marred an otherwise expressive, flowing test. The quality of the rest of the work however was enough to break the 30s barrier and earn a 29.3.
“Over the moon with all of it! That was a real shame to lose the last mark because that’s actually been a real highlight in training. But the rest of it was so good and he was so relaxed and so with me—a real pleasure to ride.”
Bobbles popped up across the board as horses spooked at a TV camera between C and M and anticipated a halt in what was now a flying change at the start of the final centerline.
Stevens’ teammates Tom McEwan and JL Dublin also dropped marks in the same spot. A unexpectedly electric atmosphere developed in Stadium 2, where the eventing dressage is being held.
“He’s a bit lit up straight away when I went in there,” McEwan commented on ‘Dubs’ reaction. “I could feel it when I kept trying to trot and he kept trying to pop into the canter—not quite where I want to be. It’s a shame because I know I could come out and deliver a 21 or 22. But honestly, coming back out with a 26, really, really pleased. Great for the team!”
McEwan’s 26.6 puts him in the individual lead and, combined with Steven’s score, ties Great Britain with New Zealand for the team lead.
Clarke Johnstone, New Zealand’s pathfinder, was second into the white boards. His 28.7 puts him in current fourth—around the higher end of his average with Rocket Man, as he’d realistically expected.
“It was as good as possible,” he said. “I thought that the arena might have lit him up a little bit, but he was totally relaxed. Sometimes he’s better when he’s just a fraction not so relaxed. But he did everything I asked. Everything happens pretty fast in that test. I got to the second to last change, I was like, oh, I’m pretty much done now.”
This is the first time the revised FEI Olympic Short Test has been ridden in competition. For many riders, the four-minute test felt like a battering ram of movements, where losing your mental focus has a domino effect.
“This test was always going to be a little bit of an unknown,” Jonelle Price (NZL) commented. Riding Senor Crocodillo, she sits in individual second overnight on a 27.2.
“There’s a lot of marks [packed in]—the zigzag [alone] has got 30 marks. So it’s quite easy to make one mistake and think you’ve slightly thrown the test away. So my first priority was a clear round.”
Lying in third is the hometown team. Germany’s Libussa Lübbeke and Malin Hanen-Hotopp may not have scored as low as they would have liked, but they keep the hosts in the gold hunt—and it’s no secret they are gunning for it.
“I think it’s just a dream that everybody has and we have the chance,” she said. “To be with Julia [Krajewski], Michael [Jung] and Libussa… Yesterday, we had a press conference in our federation tent and they asked what [the interim coach Rodolphe Scherer] thinks of this team. He said, ‘They are all champions—Olympic champion, Olympic champion, and European champion. It’s amazing to be on these kind of teams.”
Lübbeke agreed. Her 31.3 was the result of an expensive mistake in the final changes on Caramia FRH, but she has not lost sight of the final goal.
“This is what we’ve been hoping for, what we have been working on. We’ve worked quite hard on the lines and I was really pleased with the horse. [The test is] quite intensive.”
With the data feeding back to team camps, it’s anyone’s guess how Friday’s dressage will unfold. Will the anchor riders knock it out of the park with all the intel, or will the intense, quick fire test lead to more unexpected bobbles?
Eventing dressage continues Friday at 9:30am local time. Catch all the action on ClipMyHorse TV.
