Genay Vaughn Wins 2025 CDI-W Thermal, All Eyes on Florida Now

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2025 CDI-W Thermal

Geñay Vaughn and Gino made it two in a row at the 2025 CDI-W Thermal on 19 - 21 December 2025, where she picked up her first World Cup points for the North American League towards the 2026 World Cup Finals in Texas.

Vaughn Kicks Off World Cup Bid

The Desert Horse Show Park in Thermal saw only very few competitors enter for the CDI classes and the World Cup qualifier had just five contestants.

After winning the Grand Prix, Vaughn and her 14-year old KWPN gelding Gino (by Bretton Woods x Haarlem) rose to the top of the Grand Prix Freestyle with a personal best score of 76.415%. Canadian Brittney Simpson and the 14-year old KWPN bred Goldfinch (by Jazz x Lingh) landed second place with a personal best of 73.060%, while Guenter Seidel and Louise Leatherdale's 16-year old KWPN mare Equirelle (by Florett As x Donnerhal) were third with 72.815%

The next CDI-W in California is in Del Mar on 26 February - 1 March 2026. Only two CDI-W are staged in California which makes it impossible for West Coast riders to qualify for the Finals within their own state or region.

West Coast riders, who seriously want to try for the Finals in Fort Worth, had to also fly their horses either todevon, PA, Canada or Mexico in the autumn to rake in sufficient points, or choose to compete in Florida this winter.

All Eyes on Florida

Vaughn, who rode her first Finals on Gino in 2025 in Basel (SUI), seems keen on reclaiming a ticket for Forth Worth with her first 20 qualification points in the bag. She has now decided to fly her horse to Wellington, where she has a choice to ride in three CDI-W's during the Global Dressage Festival between January and March.

"I had no choice when we worked out the schedule," Vaughn said about going to Florida. "There’s no possibility of qualifying without it. There are not enough shows in California."

The trip to Florida became a multiple-day trailer ride for Gino as all domestic cargo planes in the U.S.A. were fully booked due to a Christmas rush as well as the FedEx disruption of flights after the crash of a UPS McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter at Louisville, Kentucky, in November. The planes were grounded. Md-11s were first built 40 years ago and are used extensively by FedEx, UPS and other freight carriers, as Dressage News reported.

Long Season for U.S. Combinations

For U.S. high performance combinations it will be a long 2026 show season in which some major strategic planning needs to be done to spare their horses.

By having the World Cup Finals on home turf in Texas this event has become extra interesting for Americans to attend, but at the same time the season competition highlight are the World Championships in Aachen in August. These two highlights come right after another big autumn highlight event, the 2025 U.S Open Dressage Final, in which the same group of riders was also competing.

Riders who are trying for both Texas and Aachen will have to do careful planning not to burn out their horses before the summer. All eyes are on Florida as the beating heart of horse sport in the U.S.A. Two CDI-Ws already took place in Myakka City and Ocala in October and December and some attended the CDI-W Devon in September to earn their first North American League ranking points, but all will be deciding during the GDF.

Kevin kohmann at the 2025 World Cup Finals

In addition horses need to be fit and ready for the mandatory head-to-head at the 2026 U.S. Championships in May in Ocala, which will be all decisive to be U.S. WEG team short-list. The short-listed combinations will travel to Europe for the team selection trial based on performances at CDI's in Europe before team nomination.

Chasing a dream of U.S team selection comes at a great cost, even more so for West Coast based riders. "You either are away from your barn for at least half the year or you have to travel back and forth across the country an insane amount of times," Vaughn admits. "I'm just taking it show by show," she said about the long selection process.

The top three ranked pairs in the North American League will get to travel to 2025 World Cup Final. At the moment Kevin Kohmann stands first with 52 points, followed by Ben Ebeling (49) and Christian Simonson (40). Canadian Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu is fourth with 37 points).