Eight Aachen Combinations Came Through the US Equestrian Open

Fourteen Series starts sit behind those eight combinations that will go down the centre line at Aachen in just over a week. Some used the Open as a full campaign, some took a single run and left. The Series is where the spring groundwork was laid, and Aachen is where it will be tested.

Tamie Smith & Lillet 3 won Carolina International on a 29.7 in March, then won the Cosequin Lexington Kentucky CCI4*-S on a 31.3 in April. Two starts, two wins. The Carolina performance rated 99 on HPR, the highest of the 2026 Series, from a 39-strong field carrying an Elo Field Strength of 615. That was a Carolina record and the sixth-strongest CCI4*-S field assembled on US soil since records began in 2008.

Smith leads the Series on 235 points with all six counting slots filled from four horses, and she has ridden seven across the Series. She won three qualifiers in a row through the spring. The third of those came with Danito at Tryon International off a 19.5 dressage, an all-time Series record. Aachen will be the ten-year-old Lillet 3's first championship.

William Coleman & Diabolo won The Event at TerraNova in November on a 35.3, the second qualifier of the Series. They came back in March and finished fourth at Carolina on a 33.5, rating 95 on HPR in the season's strongest field.

Coleman is second in the Series on 215 points, six slots filled across four horses, and Diabolo supplied 75 of them. The Carolina fourth was the last of those runs, because in April the horse stepped up. Diabolo won the Defender Kentucky CCI5* on a 28.1, adding 0.8 of a time penalty in the show jumping and nothing else all week, on his first attempt at the level. Coleman became the second rider (after Tamie Smith did so on the exact same day) to win both the CCI4*-S and the CCI5* at Kentucky, and the first to do it on the same horse.

Boyd Martin & Cooley Nutcracker opened at Bouckaert International in March, finishing fifth with a clear cross-country round. They entered Stable View Spring International in April, posted a 29.8 dressage and withdrew before cross country due to Boyd taking a fall earlier that day.

Martin is third in the Series on 190 points, spread across four horses, and Cooley Nutcracker contributed 20 of them, the smallest of his six counting scores. He won the inaugural Series Final at Morven Park in 2025 with Miks Master C and topped the 2025 standings on 260 points, dedicating the win to Liz Halliday, who also produced his 2026 championship ride, Cooley Nutcracker. 

One Series start, and it was close to the best performance of the season. Caroline Pamukcu & HSH Blake finished second at Carolina International on a 30.4, clear cross country with 5.2 time and 0.4 of a time penalty show jumping. HPR 98, the second-highest rated performance of the entire 2026 Series across 294 starts, behind only Smith and Lillet 3 in the same class.

Pamukcu is fourth on 185 points from six horses across ten Series runs, more starts than anyone in this group except Smith and Martin, and she was third in the 2025 standings on 215. For Blake, one qualifier does not mean a quiet spring. Carolina sat alongside a five-star campaign. HSH Blake finished second in the Kentucky CCI5* in April on a 28.6, behind Coleman and Diabolo. That was a personal best score at the level and Pamukcu's best five-star finish, after taking fourth at Maryland on Blake's five-star debut last fall. Two five-star starts, a fourth and a second.

Phillip Dutton goes to Aachen with Denim after a late substitution. This year, the eleven-year-old has finished eighth at Carolina, sixth at Fair Hill International, and twelfth at Maryland International.

That Maryland run holds the only cross-country jumping penalty across all fourteen Series starts by these eight combinations. Denim picked up a 20 and his Elo dropped from 634 to 615. Dutton sits 32nd in the standings on 30 points, both scoring runs from Denim, having finished second in the 2025 Series on 235. Four of his Series slots are still open with five qualifiers left.

The Series is open to any nationality, and three of the eight nominated combinations that used it are not American. All three ran the same qualifier: The Event at TerraNova in March.

Jessica Phoenix & Fluorescent Adolescent were fifth at The Event at TerraNova on a 42.4 in March, then twelfth at Kentucky in April.

At eighteen, Fluorescent Adolescent is the oldest horse of the eight by three years. Phoenix is twelfth in the Series on 65 points from three horses, with two of six slots filled, and the eighteen-year-old accounted for 30 of those points. Two US qualifiers were the platform for a Canadian World Championship bid.

Monica Spencer & Artist posted a 21.3 at The Event at TerraNova, the best dressage score any of these eight recorded across all fourteen Series starts. Thirty-two cross country time penalties, four show jumping faults and two more for time pushed them out to a 59.3 and eleventh place.

That was the combination's only Series run, but not their only spring start. Artist led the Kentucky CCI5* dressage on a 22.3 in April and was still in front going into the show jumping. The final phase is where this horse has repeatedly given ground, and Kentucky followed the pattern. It cost them the lead and dropped them down the order. Spencer is fifteenth in the Series on 50 points, all of it earned on three other horses.

Sophia Hill & Humble Glory finished twelfth at The Event at TerraNova on a 61.1, clear cross country with 26.8 time penalties and a clear show jumping round. Twelfth in a 26-starter field falls outside the points, so the run banked nothing toward the Series.

It is Hill's only Series start and Humble Glory's Elo came down from 618 to 605. TerraNova was a stepping stone rather than an endpoint. The off-the-track Thoroughbred has been based at Monica Spencer's Maryland yard since the Maryland Five Star in October 2025, where he finished on his dressage score in sixth. TerraNova in March, then Kentucky in April, where he jumped clear and inside the time on cross country and finished in the top ten of the CCI5*.

Hill has been splitting her time between Bluebell Park in Victoria and Spencer's base in Maryland, and April showed what that involves. The Adelaide Equestrian Festival ran 16 to 19 April, Kentucky 23 to 26 April. She rode her Australian horses at Adelaide and finished second in the CCI4*-S there with Tulara Baltango, then flew back across the Pacific for Humble Glory the following week. Aachen is her first senior championship for Australia.

US Equestrian Open of Eventing standings, top ten

After fifteen of twenty qualifiers. Each rider counts their best six placings toward the Series total.

#	Rider	Slots	Points
1	Tamie Smith	6 of 6	235
2	William Coleman	6 of 6	215
3	Boyd Martin	6 of 6	190
4	Caroline Pamukcu	6 of 6	185
5	Lucienne Bellissimo	6 of 6	175
6	Waylon Roberts	4 of 6	110
7	Karen O'Neal	3 of 6	100
8	Mia Farley	2 of 6	85
9	Alexandra Knowles	3 of 6	80
10	Tommy Greengard	2 of 6	75

Standings via the US Equestrian Open of Eventing.