Four to Follow 2026: Geñay Vaughn & Gino

Geñay Vaughn has unfinished business with the US Equestrian Open of Dressage Final. Last year, she arrived unbeaten in the West and left with only 6th place.

A year later, she leads the field on almost every metric we track. She's first in freestyle average, personal best and win chance. In fact, her lowest freestyle score in the last 12 months (74.890, at last year's Final) is higher than every other finalist's 12-month average.

Coast to Coast

Vaughn won all four of her Series qualifiers in 2025, and the only asterisk anyone could hold against that record was geography. She kept to the comfort of the West Coast last season. This year, she traveled to Wellington for the opening Adequan Global Dressage Festival show and finished second of seven. In only her second start since Thermal, she beat Ashley Holzer (who spent most of the season atop the leaderboard), Caroline Darcourt and Michael Klimke, who she'll meet again at this year's Final.

She already knows what a good day in the Final arena looks like. In December 2025, she went back into the same ring at Desert Dressage III and posted 76.415, her personal best and a full point and a half above her Final score. That jump is the biggest swing on her form line. Since then, she's barely moved: 76.415, 75.790, 75.955. That's a spread of 0.625 across her last three rides, the most consistent form in the field.

That leaves one score out of step with the rest, a 74.890 ridden on a floorplan she'd never shown before. It came at the 2025 Final. No one else in the field averages even that. Vaughn has had a full season on that floorplan since. Everyone chasing her needs a better-than-average day.

Gino's Person

Gino was never supposed to be Geñay Vaughn's horse. Her mother and longtime coach, Michele Vaughn, found him on a horse-shopping trip in Europe in 2017. He was a green six-year-old, and she bought him for herself.

Michele rode him first. Once her daughter got in the saddle, it was clear whose horse he really was.

"She knew right away," Vaughn told the Chronicle of the Horse in 2025. "Even though he wasn't like he is now, she could see the potential that he had."

In the nine years since, the two have grown up together. Vaughn brought Gino along herself, and she is the only rider he has had in FEI competition. Together they've gone from California show rings to a World Cup Final in Basel and a US Nations Cup team in Germany.

Part of that bond is by necessity. Vaughn has described Gino as "particular and quirky," a one-person type of horse who doesn't warm up to just anyone. So his one person does it all. Many top horses have a separate groom, manager and rider. Gino has Geñay. She's his groom, his chef, his travel companion and his rider.

"My world revolves around him. It's his world. I'm just living in it."

Geñay Vaughn on Gino, 2025

She calls him her best friend first and her teammate second. Nine years in, the order hasn't changed.

Rusty?

Vaughn's stat card is stacked, there's no denying that. But can anyone catch her? Her biggest weakness might be time. The last time this pair rode a freestyle was February 28. That's eight and a half months ago. They did compete in a Nations Cup in Germany this summer, but they rode the Grand Prix and the Special, not the freestyle.

Last year followed a similar pattern. Vaughn's last pre-Final freestyle was at DevonWood in May 2025, five and a half months before the Final, where she finished 6th. She and Gino are arguably a stronger pair this season, with more mileage and experience under their belts. But eight and a half months between freestyle starts is a long time.

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