October 25, 2026 
Twenty-three years ago, Lillie Keenan watched the President’s Cup at Washington International Horse Show (WIHS) for the first time. Sixteen years ago (2010), she won WIHS Equitation Final at the same event. On Saturday, she became the third rider ever to win both trophies.
“I’ve been coming to Washington since I was seven or eight years old on a pony,” she related. “I was champion in the pony divisions here, I was champion in the junior hunters, and I won the equitation final here when I was 13. I rode in the open jumpers when I was 16 or 17.
“Now I’m 30, so I’ve been here for a long time,” she laughed. “It’s really incredible to be able to jump in front of my home crowd for the President’s Cup, which is a class I’ve watched since the first time that I came here on a small pony. My mom always wanted me to see the best riders in the world, so it’s pretty awesome to now be one of them.”
That’s not hyperbole either. Keenan is currently the highest-earning female rider of 2026, ranked seventh overall with $1.448 million in prize money won, according to Jumpr stats.
Saturday saw the latest chapter in that story.
Thirteen pairs advanced to the jump-off in the Colm Quinn-designed course for the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup Washington CSI5*-W. Daniel Coyle (IRL) and longtime partner Farrel set the time to beat at 37.13 seconds. Keenan and Kick On matched that pace stride for stride until a push down the last line, where they left out a stride stopped the clock at 36.69.
It was the only sub-37-second time of the day.
“To be honest, in both rounds I didn’t actually ride my plan,” said Keenan. “In the first round, I planned after the triple combination to do five strides, which pretty much the whole class did, and I ended up on six strides. It was a bit of a rider error, and I got away with it. Then in the jump-off, there were quite a few places I planned to do fewer strides, and it just didn’t quite come up the way that I thought it might. I didn’t think I was going to be fast enough.”
Keenan and Kick On, a 12-year-old BE/SIES stallion (Warrior x Caretino Glory) with a “big personality,” have been partnered for three years—and have claimed a five-star 1.60m win in each.
“He does not like a lot of force. I think that’s why he works so well for me as a woman,” she explained of Kick On (aka ‘Ken’). “I think that one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from Ken is that every interaction you have with a horse affects your relationship, and it carries over to the ring. I know that my biggest strength is not strength, so I try to really rely on the relationship that I can build with my horses. Day to day, there’s a lot of discipline and knowing a boundary, but then when he goes to the show, it’s about having fun and shining.”
Keenan now moves into fifth position on the North American League standings with four legs remaining. Shane Sweetnam sits atop the leaderboard with 32 points, followed by Beat Mändli (25) and McLain Ward (24). The World Cup next stops in Toronto, Nov 10–14.
Oh, and the other two riders to have laid claim to both the WIHS Equitation and Grand Prix titles? McLain Ward and Kent Farrington. They went on to win Olympic medals and rise to world No. 1 in the rankings…
