- by David Stickland
We are just a few days away from the 2025 European Dressage Championships taking place this year at the Jiva-Hill Resort in Crozet, France, just 20 minutes or so away from Geneva and the airport. Starting from a CDI3* in 2017 and ramping up to 5* as of 2023 this is the 8th international dressage competition taking place at the Jiva Hill resort founded by Virginia and Ian Lundin.
The preparations are all in place for what promises to be an exciting event with 62 combinations participating.
The Competition Format
Unlike the Olympics the 14 nations sending teams can send up to four combinations with the best three scores counting for the team score. Also unlike the Olympics the team medals are decided by the Grand Prix tests taking place over two days, Wednesday and Thursday 27 and 28 August. Nine individual riders also participate in the Grand Prix which acts as the selection event for the Grand Pix Special on Friday 29 August with the best 30 ranked riders from the GP qualified for the Special. If a Nation has 4 riders in the top 30, then all 4 can proceed to the Special.
The top 3 combinations from the Special are awarded Individual medals and the top 18 riders qualify for the Freestyle event to take place on Sunday 31 August, though for the Freestyle a maximum of 3 riders from each nation can participate. The 3 top combinations from the Freestyle are awarded another set of European Championship Individual medals, so in principle there can be two different Individual Champions.
Starting Orders
The Grand Prix is the only competition with a somewhat complex starting order.
Article 417 of the FEI Dressage rules defines it all. Firstly, the individual riders are assigned starting positions over the two days (the lower ranking list riders on the first day, the higher ones on the second day) based on their world ranking list points and a random draw. Then each nation team is assigned a score equal to the average of the points on the FEI Dressage World Ranking List for athletes; the teams are then organized in groups 5 (thus for 14 nations teams Ranked 1-5 in group A, 6-10 in group B and 11-14 in group C) where the groups will go in the order C, B, A and then a random drawing within each group assigns the actual team order to go.
The teams' Chefs d’Equipe decide internally the order of their starters in each of 4 nation start groupings – two on Wednesday and two on Thursday. Finally, the team rider start positions are assigned to the slots remaining after the individuals were placed!
For the GP Special Individual Competition, the staring order is in reverse order of the individual ranking result from the Team Competition, in groups of five (5); and the same system is used for the GP Freestyle based on the results from the GP Special. The better the rider scores, the more advantageous his starting position becomes. Scientific research has indicated that scores automatically go up towards the end of a class.
The Team Competition
Looking at the scores the participants have achieved in 2025 at international shows before Crozet, predications can be made (though reality can of course be different!) about the medals and rankings.
Team competition looks like being a very tight fight between Germany:
- Isabell Werth - Wendy 80%
- Frederic Wandres - Bluetooth 77%
- Hemmer - Denoix: 75%
- Ingrid Klimke - Vayron: 73%
and Great Britain:
- Charlotte Fry - Glamourdale: 78%
- Carl Hester - Fame: 77%
- Becky Moody - Jagerbomb: 77%
- Andrew Gould - Indigro:71%
Based on their trends over the past year the prediction for the top 3 for each team would be identically 232 points! A single error for any of the top 3 in each team would swing the balance in favour of the other team – or to be more positive, an exceptional ride by any of them would swing the balance back in their favour.
Denmark looks safe for a Bronze medal, placing them 5 points below GBR/GER and 6 points above Belgium:
- Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour - Mount St John Freestyle: 83%
- Andreas Helgstrand - Jovian: 72%
- Rikke Dupont - Grand Galliano: 72%
- Nadja Aaboe Sloth - Favour Gersdorf: 70%
But any glitch from a top German or British rider and they are ready to jump up to Silver. Like Germany, Denmark really depends on its top rider, in this case Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour, coming through. She has competed Freestyle in only one CDI this year, on home turf in Aalborg, back in February! National scores are not included in the statistics for score predictions.
Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden are of course waiting for any mistakes from Denmark to jump up to bronze. In passing we can note that Dinja Van Liere - Hermes have not competed internationally since December 2024 which make predictions for Netherlands quite uncertain.
The Individual Competition(s)
In many ways I think the Individual competition is even more exciting and more open to “disruption” than the Team! While in the Team we are inevitably seeing the traditionally strong nations at the top of the charts, there is a whole new dimension to the Individual with the rapid ascension of the Belgian combination of Justin Verboomen-Zonik Plus, whose trends are staggering with his most recent outing in Aachen being an 80.745 in the Special and 89.400 in the Freestyle. While Cathrine and Freestyle remain favourites for the Individual medal, Justin may well give Isabell a hard time for silver. Justin is also the only rider in the whole competition with positive trends for every movement type over the past year! And of course, Charlotte, Carl, Frederik and Becky are close by waiting for any mistakes from the top 3.
The predicted qualification score to make it to the Grand Prix Special is 69.50-70%, while the predicted qualification score to make it into the Kur finals is 72%.
While it is possible to make plausible predictions for the GP and Special I don’t even attempt that for the Freestyle! Riders often change their Freestyle for the Championships and a new choreography or music can make a very big difference. I will look forward to watching all three competitions.
If you have the possibility to get to Geneva then there are still some tickets available. The weather is looking "interesting", being fresher than the recent high temperatures and you will enjoy top class sport in a beautiful environment – though the Mont Blanc blocks the view to Italy….
- by David Stickland
Related Link
Eurodressage Coverage of the 2025 European Dressage Championships