Kane Needs Her Best Ride Yet to Stop Simonson at TerraNova
With the series title already settled, the last qualifier of the season comes down to the prize money. Simonson can’t really lose this weekend, but Kane can, and stopping him will likely take a new personal best.
Christian Simonson earned all 40 of his series points on Indian Rock. At TerraNova on Saturday, the final qualifier of the 2026 US Equestrian Open of Dressage, he’ll ride Fleau de Baian instead.
Kevin Kohmann already has the series title, so the fight this weekend is for the prize money behind him. Only five combinations are entered, and the matchup at the top is a good one.
Devon Kane and Simonson haven’t met in a series class this season, but they shared this ring a year ago: Simonson won TerraNova’s October freestyle on Indian Rock with 81.405, while Kane finished 5th on Vamos with 73.790. A lot has changed since. Kane’s score has gone up every time she’s ridden here, ending with a win on 75.465 in April. Simonson now returns to TerraNova on Fleau de Baian (barn name “Felix”), whose best freestyle is 76.570.
Kane needs a win to protect her spot in the standings. Simonson moves up just by finishing, and a win would take him from 11th to 2nd.
Kane Has to Ride Like Her Season Depends on It
TerraNova has been good to Kane and Vamos. Their freestyle score has gone up on every visit: 72.705% in May 2025, then 73.790% at this show last October, then 75.465% in April. That last score is her personal best and her only FEI freestyle win.
Her best results have also been her most nail-biting. She won in April by 0.080 points over Camille Carier Bergeron, which ties for the smallest winning margin of the series. At AGDF 5 she landed on the wrong side of a close one, losing to Pablo Gomez Molina by 0.255. Her two best series results were decided by a combined 0.335 points, and this weekend could be just as tight.
Regardless of what Simonson does, a win moves Kane from 5th to 3rd, or put monetarily, from $4,000 to $6,500. But second gets her nothing. That would put her on 49 points, tied with Frederic Wandres, and she’d need more than 81.580% to win the tiebreak (unlikely). If she doesn’t win and Simonson finishes ahead of her in the top three, she drops to 6th and $3,000.
| Final Standing | Prize Money |
|---|---|
| Series Champion | $12,500 |
| 2nd | $7,500 |
| 3rd | $6,500 |
| 4th | $5,000 |
| 5th | $4,000 |
| 6th | $3,000 |
| 7th | $2,000 |
| 8th to 15th | $1,000 |
| 16th to 18th | $500 |
Kane’s 75.465% PB is exactly the median winning score across the 23 qualifiers. Both of Simonson’s best freestyles on Fleau de Baian beat it, so she likely needs a new personal best this weekend. Her TerraNova trend says that’s within reach. If her average improvement here holds, she scores 76.850%, which beats Fleau de Baian’s best. But Fleau de Baian is improving too, and when you project both pairs forward, they land within a point of each other. Kane’s TerraNova trend needs to hold one more time.
Simonson Can’t Really Lose
Simonson won both of his 2026 series starts on Indian Rock, scoring 78.840% and 81.445%. The 81.445 is the third-highest score of the series. Those two wins are how he reached 40 points in only two starts and secured a beastly 80.143% freestyle average (handy in the event of a tie). So the scoring pressure is largely off this weekend. Indian Rock already built Simonson’s foundation. Fleau de Baian just needs to show up. If Simonson wants to 7x his prize money, though, Felix needs to put down his best.
The good news for Simonson is that Fleau de Baian’s best is plenty. That 76.570% beats the winning score in 16 of the 23 qualifiers this season. His 74.450% average beats only seven, but that’s because the partnership is new and the early tests are still dragging the number down. The trend tells you more about this pair than the average does, and the trend is good. His freestyle score has gone up at every finish, and his last two were both above 76%. Right now, a finishing score in the upper half of the 70s looks like a safe bet.
Simonson can’t really lose this weekend. Right now he’d collect $1,000 from the leaderboard race. If he finishes the class, worst case, he doubles that. But if he wins, he ties on 55 points with Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu. Since he’s got the higher freestyle average, he takes 2nd and the $7,500 payout.
The Long Shot
Further down the standings, Eline Eckroth is the only rider who can change the list of 18 invited to the US Equestrian Open Final. A win takes her from 19 points to 34. That would put Eckroth 17th, Leonardo Antonio Godoy 18th, and bump Susan Pape out. That is, well, an unlikely scenario, but wilder things have happened in the US Equestrian Open of Dressage.
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