Busy Bee Becky Moody Claims Inter I Supreme Champion's Title at 2026 British Dressage Championships

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2026 British Dressage Championships

With the 2026 British Dressage Championships wrapping up today, Sunday 13 September 2026, at Somerford Park the majority of champions and title-getters are known.

At small tour level, titles are awarded to the winners of the individual classes whereas a string of "supreme champions" are named based on a combination of two classes: There are supreme champions for PSG + PSG Freestyle (Matt Frost), for the PSG + Inter I (Laura Tomlinson), as well as for the winner of the Inter I + Inter I freestyle. The latter supreme title was won by British Olympian Becky Moody who has had a very busy summer.

Moody and Magic Dream: Inter I Supreme Champions

Having finished sixth in the Intermediate I on Friday, Becky took the win in the Inter I Freestyle with a whopping 76.950% aboard Jo Cooper’s Magic Dream (by Governor x Swarovski). The nine-year-old KWPN mare impressed judges Richard Baldwin (E), Fiona Wilson (H), Clive Halsall (C), Sue Petty (M) and Jane Peberdy (B), earning a scoresheet of 7.0s, 7.5s and 8.0s, with one of judges giving the combination 9.0s for their choreography and interpretation of the music.

“I was just really pleased with her, yesterday was not our best Inter I ever, I feel like I have made a big step forward in her training. We have had so little time competing with her this year that I honestly, just yesterday, felt a little bit ring rusty with her in that situation. We had a couple of costly and silly mistakes on my part. Today, I felt that we were in sync and ready, so she was really cool and we both love that freestyle.”

Behind Becky, Gareth Hughes and Flamboyant Dressage Stud’s Morricone III finished in second with 74.275%, and Dannie Morgan finished in third with his own Fever Tree on 73.400%.

Her score of the Inter I and Inter I Freestyle combined made Moody and Magic Dream the supreme Inter I champions with a total of 146,744 points. This was closely followed by Gareth Hughes and Morricone III (by Millennium x Rubin Royal) on 144.893, and finally Matt Frost on Keeva Dedicoat's Lenika (by Foreign Affair x Lord Sinclair) with a final combined score of 143.368.

A Different Journey With Every Horse

With Magic Dream at the 2025 CDI-W 's Hertogenbosch

Magic Dream took home the British Seven Year Old Champion title back in 2024, and Becky spoke to us about the development of this mare through the levels from the Young Horse Class up to Inter I, stating about how she values the longevity and experience of the horses over pushing them to reach Grand Prix before they are ready.

“Every horse takes you on a different journey, and every horse has strengths and weaknesses," said Moody. "She is now very confident with this level, and she is now playing around the with the Grand Prix movements, she has a real talent for it, but we are really working on developing her confidence doing the piaffe and passage work.

“It is interesting, because in some ways I have had… if you take Bomb for example, when he won the seven year olds, by the time he was nine he was reserve for the European team, and went to London to the London international at the end of his ninth year. She is quite a long way behind where he was, but it’s just a good example of the different journeys these horses go on. She is taking a little bit more time to get strong and get really confident in the work."

Horses Have to Be Confident

Becky continued, "one thing we learn about from this work is that they do have to be confident in it otherwise it just makes it really hard, so you’re better spending that little bit more time trying to get that than putting them in a situation that makes them wobbly. So, if I’m honest, at the start of this year, I hadn’t planned on doing in the Inter I but thought she would do some Inter IIs, which she has played with and done some low-key ones, but she wasn’t ready for it in this environment so we just did the Inter Is just to work her through, which is where she qualified. So, I just thought I would bring her here to experience the bigger environment and work her here. So, for me, this is great, and its great experience for the horse.”

Busy Bee Becky

At the 2026 World Championships in Aachen

Becky also explained to us that since she returned from the World Championships in Aachen just three weeks ago, she hasn’t actually been at home a lot.

“I couldn’t tell you where I have been!”, she exclaimed, “it sounds ridiculous to say I felt ring rusty when I’ve just been out in Aachen, but it’s a different horse and a different situation. It’s not about me, it’s the combination of me and that horse. So even though we had taken a big step forward in the training, we hadn’t had any time to put that training into a competition environment. It’s why I think I didn’t capture the feeling that we have been getting at home yesterday, but that’s just life… it is what it is! Bomb and the World Championships have been my priority this year, and the year was built to get him there in the best shape possible. But I also had my Youth rider who was out at the European Championships and another client who is heading out for the Asian Games, so it’s not just Bomb, it’s trying to split it between everything.”