FEI Moves Aachen Grand Prix Special Forward Over Heat
Grand Prix Special Start Moves Earlier
The FEI has rescheduled Friday's Grand Prix Special at the FEI World Championships Aachen 2026 to start more than two hours earlier, after extreme heat forecast for 14 August 2026 prompted organisers to rework the day's dressage timetable. The change moves Becky Moody and Jagerbomb's test into the morning session and reshapes the running order for Britain's three qualified combinations chasing the first individual medals of the championship.
The Grand Prix Special was due to begin at 12:50pm GST (10:50am CEST) and now starts at 10:30am GST (8:30am CEST), with a break added between 2:45pm and 5pm GST (12:45pm to 3pm CEST) before the class resumes to finish at 6:50pm GST (4:50pm CEST), its originally scheduled finishing time. Thirty combinations qualified for Friday's revised running order, headed by a cut-off score of 70.71 percent, notably higher than recent championships and closer to the Herning 2022 mark of 71.15 percent than the 68.88 percent recorded at last year's Europeans.
The decision was made by the President of the Ground Jury, the Technical Delegate and the President of the Veterinary Commission, in consultation with the organising committee, based on veterinary and meteorological advice. It was taken under FEI rules that allow a competition to be postponed, rescheduled or cancelled where extreme weather conditions or horse welfare are a concern, with enhanced heat mitigation measures also put in place across the venue for the remainder of the day.
Three of Britain's four Grand Prix combinations made the cut for the revised card. Becky Moody and Jagerbomb now go at 1:46pm GST (11:46am CEST), well inside the morning session and ahead of their original 4:01pm GST (2:01pm CEST) slot, while Carl Hester and Fame remain unchanged at 5:22pm GST (3:22pm CEST) and Lottie Fry and Glamourdale at 6:28pm GST (4:28pm CEST). Fiona Bigwood and Donna Bella narrowly missed out on the cut-off with 69.35 percent.
Piaffe Specialists Stand To Gain Most
Piaffe, a highly collected trot-like movement performed almost on the spot, and passage, an elevated suspended trot, carry significantly more weight in the Special than in the Grand Prix: together with their transitions, the two movements make up 42 percent of the marks on offer against 36 percent in the Grand Prix, shaping which combinations stand to gain most from the reshuffled running order.
The projected podium runs through Denmark and Belgium. Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Mount St John Freestyle topped the Grand Prix on 82.38 percent, with Justin Verboomen and Zonik Plus, who edged the pairing 82.37 percent to 81.69 percent in the equivalent test at last year's Europeans, chasing on 80.89 percent after tension crept into their test. Isabell Werth and Wendy De Fontaine, with a sell-out home crowd behind her, were fourth on 79.88 percent, and Lottie Fry and Glamourdale third on 80.31 percent. Katharina Hemmer and Denoix PCH can consider themselves unlucky not to have scored higher than their personal best of 79.22 percent, leaving her among those expected to push for a podium finish once the revised running order reaches its closing stages. Becky Moody and Jagerbomb, whose Grand Prix mistakes pegged them back to 73.82 percent and 12th, have their best chance of recovery in the discipline that suits the pairing most, with their revised morning slot now falling well before the extended midday break splits the reshaped card in two.
Eventing Dressage Times Stay Unchanged
The heat measures applied to the Grand Prix Special do not extend to eventing's second day of dressage, held elsewhere at the Aachen venue on the same day and running to its originally scheduled 11:30am to 7pm GST (9:30am to 5pm CEST), with a lunch break already built in between 3:13pm and 4:44pm GST (1:13pm and 2:44pm CEST) that covers part of the hottest period without requiring any restructuring.
Göran Åkerström, veterinary and equine welfare director at the FEI, addressed the discrepancy directly when he spoke to written press at the championships, explaining that eventing horses are relatively lean, extremely well trained for their purpose and compete in a test much shorter than the Grand Prix Special, while dressage horses carry far more muscle mass and perform far more concentrated muscle activity, which generates heat and makes them more susceptible to reaching a high temperature.
A member of the organising team, asked whether the break could have been extended further into the evening, said the main concern was welfare and, secondary to that, a level playing field, and that avoiding the middle of the day ticked both boxes. Åkerström was joined at the briefing by Dr Friedrich Wilhem Hanböcken, president of the veterinary commission, and the pair drew on precedent from the Tokyo Olympics while stressing that conditions in Aachen differ meaningfully: humidity there is capped at a maximum of 45 percent, against levels that could reach 90 percent in Tokyo, a gap organisers said was central to how the current measures were calibrated.
Monitoring at Aachen is built around frequent, distributed checks rather than a single reading point, with conditions tracked every half hour at 16 separate locations around the Soers venue alongside a body-temperature system for the horses themselves. Thermography cameras, a peer-reviewed method developed ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games, allow vets a continuous read on individual welfare risk and let them intervene and advise connections to cool a horse down before it comes under further strain.
Cooling infrastructure built into the venue includes iced water and dedicated cooling and shaded areas, with the same framework extended to Saturday's cross-country test, where iced water and personnel will be stationed at every stopping point on the course and a cooling area fitted with wash bays, iced water and large fans awaits horses at the finish. Every horse is required to have its temperature taken before it is allowed to leave the venue. "So we're very well prepared for anything on Saturday, but of course we very closely monitor the weather forecast to be prepared for anything," Åkerström said.