August 12, 2026 
With the Grand Prix Team Final and Individual Qualifier officially in the books on Wednesday, August 12, during the FEI World Dressage Championships, Great Britain’s combined score of 231.445 proved good enough for a podium placing. Comprised of Fiona Bigwood (69.35%), Becky Moody (73.820), Carl Hester (77.314), and Charlotte Fry (80.311), the team finished second behind the gold-medal-winning German squad on a score of 235.063.
Denmark, the former World Champions in Herning in 2022, took bronze on 229.426.
Moody, Hester, and Fry will all move on to contest the Individual Grand Prix Special on Friday, while Bigwood’s 37th-place finish puts her and Donna Bella just outside the top-30 qualifiers. It’s a tough pill to swallow for any competitor, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it based on Bigwood’s reaction to her 10-year-old AES mare’s performance—a partner that’s close to her heart in more ways than one.
“She has an absolute heart of gold, she tries her hardest,” Bigwood said after her test. “She’s just a legend. Not at one point did I think she wasn’t with me. She’s aware of new things in her environment and was just like ‘I trust you Mum, and off we go!’”
Although the British rider told Horse & Hound that she was forced to make some concessions during her ride due to Donna Bella’s young age and inexperience—the mare spooked slightly at the cameras and struggled in her one-time changes, finishing just below her season average—her rider was more than satisfied, saying, “I was delighted with her.”
To be sure, if anyone should know the ins and outs of bringing a young horse through their first major championship with success, it’s Bigwood.
More than a decade before Donna Bella’s Aachen World Championships debut, Bigwood was riding her mother, the Oldenburg mare Atterupgaards Orthilia, at the same venue. The pair earned a team silver medal at the 2015 European Championships in Aachen as well as the Rio Olympic Games one year later.
At the time of her first championship, Atterupgaards Orthilia was also just 10 years old. According to Bigwood, maturity beyond her horses’ years is trait that runs in family.
“The whole line is really similar; they’re so focused on you as the rider, really want to try for you, have the same energy level—they’re absolutely identical, it’s so strange,” Bigwood told British Dressage. “It’s lovely because I know that line and how to work with them.”
The British rider, who has described Donna Bella as a foal as “well behaved and very sweet,” may have mixed feelings about her week in Aachen being over. But there’s no doubt Bigwood got what she came for: A positive, confidence-building experience in the biggest test of her mare’s dressage career to date.
After all, Donna Bella is nothing if not a championship-level horse for the future, and her owner/breeder/rider plans to be right there beside her through it all.
“I think when you’ve been there at their birth, and you know when they’re backed, and their whole training—we know each other so well, inside and out,” Bigwood explained. “There is something very special about bringing a horse all the way through [the levels] yourself.”
