Kim Alting's Fiji Withdrawn from 2026 World Young Horse Championships

Dressage

The Netherlands

Kim Alting and the breeding stallion Fiji will not be competing for KWPN at the 2026 World Championships for young dressage horses in Verden.

Fiji

Fiji is a 2020 born Dutch warmblood stallion by For Romance I out of Happy-Times ZB (by Charmeur - Goodtimes). He is bred at Stal Zwaansbroek in the Netherlands and owned by Reesink Horses.

Fiji's breeding and sport career mainly takes place in Germany. He was first licensed in January 2023 at the Oldenburg Stallion Days in Vechta. and approved in April 2023 for Westfalia and in May 2024 for Hanover. He completed his sport test in Verden in 2024 with an overall score of 8.21. He was third in the main premium ring for Oldenburg in 2025. He did the 21-day KWPN autumn stallion performance test in December 2025.

He has only been very lightly competed since he was matched with Dutch rider Kim Alting, the assistant to Dinja van Liere. The pair finished third in the 2025 Pavo Cup Finals. Alting made her international debut with him at the CDI Exloo but got eliminated from both 6-year old tests. As he's Dutch bred, he competed in the Dutch WCYH team selection trials and was picked for the Dutch team to go to the World YH Championships in Verden.

Colic

Alting announced today that Fiji suffered from a bout of colic on Friday 26 June 2026. He was transported to the equine clinic in Someren, where he received medical care.

"We quickly saw he wasn't himself," Alting explained. "Thanks to the veterinary practice De Meierij for being there quickly and Michaël for quickly sending us to the clinic in Someren. Fiji is fortunately stable now and getting all the time to recover!"

Alting added, "unfortunately no World Cup for us this year and that is also just as difficult..But the most important thing is that Fiji will come back on top soon and we will really do everything about that ."

Substitute

The first reserve to step in for Fiji is Pjethro (by Kjento) under British Sadie Smith.

Sadie took over the ride on Gert-Jan van Olst's stallion from Charlotte Fry who can't compete in Verden as she's preparing for the World Championships in Aachen that week.