What's Happening: January 2026 - Part I

At the start of the new year several dressage riders announced that they are pregnant or welcomed babies.

Belgian Olympian Laurence Roos and her partner Stef Alen are expecting their first child together in March 2026. At the gender reveal party in October, their corgi dog Timon came running out with pink balloons to indicate it will be a girl. Since the retirement of her Grand Prix horse Fil Rouge, Laurence is working full time in her own dental practice while bringing along a young horses up the levels.

The 2026 French Young Horse Championships will move from Fontainebleau to Le Mans. After three years of being hosted in Fontainebleau, the organizers of Le Mans were able to bring these Championships for young ponies and horses under its roof on 10 - 13 September 2026. Le Mans also hosts the  French 7-year old championship during the CDI Le Mans of October 2026.

Talking about French dressage sport, a golden oldie is back on the calendar: Pompadour returns as CDI on 26 - 29 March 2026. The last time Pompadour hosted a CDI was in 2017. The 2018 edition got cancelled and in 2020 the organizer, Roger Simonnet, passed away.

Hungarian team rider Berill Szoke Toth and her partner, Spanish professional dressage rider Gonzalo Castillo Arroyo, are expecting their first baby togethe . The pair has been a couple almost five years and met at Henri Ruoste's yard. They now run their own business in Duisburg, Germany. The cake at their gender reveal party was also pink inside.

German dressage rider Madlin Zott, for whom 2024 was bleak with the sudden passing of her horse Quadrofina, finished 2025 on a high note as she was proposed to by her long-time boyfriend and said yes on 30 December. 

Dr. Antonius Bornemann passed away on 26 December 2025 at age 81. This former show jumping rider and breeder was the director of the Westfalian Horse Center in Munster-Handorf and HLP director between 1977 and 2008. He was closely connected with the Warendorf State Stud and was often a guest at the Westfalian stallion parades.

Swedish Grand Prix rider Malin Wahlkamp-Nilsson gave birth to her second child on 5 January 2026. Malin kept her second pregnancy rather low-key, but on 6 January she announced the arrival of daughter Anna. "She made us wait for her but finally here she is," Malin wrote. Malin and her husband Steffen are already parents to daughter Emma, who was born in February 2020.

German dressage rider Madeleine Plinke will be relocating to Bavaria, where she will base her business out of the Wenzel family owned equestrian center Ettringen near Munich. Plinke is currently based in Kirchdorf near Diepholz in the north of Germany, and began working as an independent rider in March 2025.

Dominique Dreumel, the photographer and owner behind Equigeniek, has given birth to her first baby, a girl named Faye, on 4 January 2026. The father is Dreumel's partner, Nick van Aken (30), who overcame and recovered from a horrible car crash last June. Van Aken has two children from a previous relationship and now their family has grown with Faye.