The 10 Best Performances of the 2026 US Equestrian Open of Eventing
HPR strips out the noise. It accounts for field strength, winning margins, and course difficulty to measure the true quality of a performance. Not every win is equal. Here are the ten best of the 2026 Series so far.
Twelve qualifiers in, 263 starts on the board, and the HPR leaderboard is settling into shape. One rider features three times. One horse features twice. The top seven performances of the season came from a female rider.
The highest-rated performance of the 2026 Series came in March. Tamie Smith & Lillet 3 won the Carolina CCI4*-S on a 29.7, one of just two combinations to make the cross-country time, in a field that carried an Elo Field Strength rating of 615. That surpassed the previous Carolina record of 605 from 2024, and ranks as the sixth-highest CCI4*-S field assembled on US soil since records began in 2008.
At 99, it is the highest HPR of Lillet 3's career and is Tamie's best top-level HPR on a horse that isn't Mai Baum.
Caroline Pamukcu & HSH Blake finished second at Carolina on 30.4, behind Lillet 3 but ahead of one of the deepest fields ever assembled at the venue. It was not a win but it is exactly the kind of performance HPR is designed to recognise.
The follow-up tells you what the HPR was already saying. A few weeks later at the Kentucky CCI5*-L, HSH Blake finished on the podium. It was the first five-star podium for both horse and rider.
The Tryon dressage record had stood since 2020. Tamie Smith & Danito rewrote it on the first day of the competition with a 19.5: a new all-time US Equestrian Open Series record, and the best dressage test recorded internationally at any level in 2026 from over 5,000 FEI tests.
They went on to win the qualifier on a 27.9 in a class that has never produced a cross-country clear inside the time. The HPR of 98 reflects both the quality of the dressage outlier and a competitive Tryon field. It was Smith's third consecutive qualifier win.
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Top 7
7 women
The first male rider on the list is Will Coleman at eighth. Tamie Smith, Caroline Pamukcu, Jennie Brannigan, Colleen Loach, and Lucienne Bellissimo account for every result down to seventh.
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Repeat Rider
Smith × 3
Tamie Smith features three times. No other rider features more than once. She holds first, third, and fifth on the list across two horses and two venues.
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Repeat Horse
Lillet 3 × 2
The only horse to feature twice. Carolina in March and Kentucky in April. Both wins, both season-defining results, both in fields with serious depth.
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Only FOD in the Top 10
Dyri
Lucienne Bellissimo & Dyri at Stable View. One of three combinations to finish on their dressage score in the 2026 Series, and the only one to crack the top 10 HPRs.
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