Look out, tennis. Move over, golf. The equestrian world now has its own U.S. Open—three of them, in fact—designed to elevate the profile of Olympic horse sports and bring in new fans.

First up? The Rolex US Equestrian Open of Jumping, which consists of two qualifiers held earlier this week, during Week 12 of the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, and culminates in the tonight’s final, the $750,000 Rolex US Equestrian Open Grand Prix CSI5*.

One of the major goals of the US Equestrian Open project is to increase fan engagement and bring new people in from outside the sports. To that end, the U.S. Equestrian Federation has partnered with data and analytics firm Equiratings and technology and scoring provider Black Horse One to provide statistics and factoids common in other sports. For example, Equiratings analyzed the strength of the field in every five-star grand prix class held at WEF since 2010, ranking each class (and its winner) according to difficulty.

The USEF has also created a dedicated US Equestrian Open microsite stuffed with stories about competitors, including podcasts with the likes of Laura Kraut and Alex Matz, and vlogs with McLain Ward, Lillie Keenan and others, as well as a fan guide. USEF President Tom O’Mara hopes that building storylines throughout the series will help engage fans new and old.

Though it’s called the “US” Open, a rider from any country can win it, said Vicki Lowell, chief marketing and content officer for the USEF, as it’s not a national championship.

In addition to being the finale of the US Equestrian Open of Jumping, the Rolex US Equestrian Open Grand Prix CSI5* is the finale of the seven-show Rolex Series.

Who Will Be There?

There are a few ways to earn an invitation to tonight’s jumping final. Riders who won an individual medal at the last Olympic Games, world championship, Pan American Games or another continental championship are pre-qualified for the final, as is the 2024 Longines FEI World Cup Final winning rider and the winning pair from the 2024 $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix CSI5* in Wellington.

In practice, that means that four riders who are in Wellington to compete earned automatic invites: Henrik von Eckermann of Sweden (reigning world champion and 2024 Longines FEI World Cup Final winner), Kent Farrington (2023 Santiago Pan Am Games silver medalist), McLain Ward (2023 Santiago Pan Am Games bronze medalist) and Christian Kukuk (2024 Paris Olympic Games gold medalist and last year’s Rolex Grand Prix winner with Checker 47.)

The final will have 40 riders: Eckermann, Farrington, Ward and Kukuk, plus 36 others who qualify through their placings in Thursday’s $116,100 Adequan WEF Challenge Cup 12 and Friday’s $62,500 Bainbridge Companies 1.50m Classic.

When:

7:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Saturday, March 29

Entries, Order Of Go And Results:

Can be found here.

How To Watch:

In addition to being streamed live on USEF Network powered by Clipmyhorse.tv and Wellingtoninternational.com, viewers can watch the final live on ESPN 3, too.

How To Follow Along:

The Chronicle is on the scene and will bring you the news from the biggest class of the Winter Equestrian Festival.

Not Just Show Jumping

The US Equestrian Open of Eventing and US Equestrian Open of Dressage finals will take place later this year, as their series are structured differently than jumping.

Lowell said that while the goal of the series was to have qualifiers for each sport leading up to the final, USEF wanted to find an approach that worked in each sport.

“Unlike eventing and dressage, jumping already had several major series on the competition calendar, including Major League Show Jumping and the Longines FEI World Cup North American League,” she said. “Rather than create a new series, we decided to partner with Wellington International and Rolex to ‘supersize’ the Rolex Finale Week, amplifying the intense invitation and qualifying process that is part of making the cut for the Saturday night Rolex US Equestrian Open Grand Prix. The 12 weeks leading up to the Rolex Finale Week provided the opportunity to follow the riders leading up to the final two qualifying events Week 12 and the US Equestrian Open Jumping Final.”

Eventing and dressage have with multiple qualifiers held throughout the year: 25 in dressage (all of the competitions are CDIs) in 2025 and 20 in eventing (every CCI4*-S competition in the country) from the fall of 2024 to the end of 2025. Both those sports will culminate in autumn championships: eventing at the US Equestrian Open Of Eventing Final, to be held Oct. 9-12 at the Morven Park International & Fall Horse Trials CCI4*-L (Virginia), and dressage at the US Open Of Dressage Final, to be held Nov. 13-16 at Desert Dressage II CDI5* (California). Both the eventing and dressage finals will award $200,000 in prize money, plus an additional $50,000 awarded to top finishers in the series.

The eventing series winner is determined based on each athlete’s best six results, and the top finisher gets $25,000 with prize money going down to third. To qualify for the final riders either must complete a series qualifier with a minimum eligibility requirement or buy into the series final for $5,000 (which will be added to the final’s prize money).

The dressage series winner is based on each athlete’s six best Grand Prix freestyle results, with the top finisher in the series getting $12,500 and prize money going down to 18^th place in the series. To be a part of the series standings, riders must compete in at least two qualifiers and earn at least a 67% in a freestyle at one of the qualifiers. The top 18 riders in the season-end standings qualify for the final.

About The US Equestrian Open

The US Equestrian Open series follow a similar format to the golf U.S. Open, with qualifiers and a final, and O’Mara said that studying the history of football and baseball in particular got him interested in putting together a series culminating in a big final. According to O’Mara, the idea for the three series has been in the works for about five years, as it took a lot of planning from multiple stakeholders to make it happen, with the USEF board officially blessing the project in July of 2023.

He said part of the genesis for the idea was borne out of the federation’s vision statement: “To bring the joy of horse sport to as many people as possible.” While previous president and current Wellington International CEO Murray Kessler focused on the “joy” aspect of horse sports, O’Mara said he wanted to focus on the second part: “as many people as possible.”

Another goal of this series is to give riders additional competition and money-winning opportunities. Is it working? O’Mara thinks so. Eventers and dressage riders already are starting to study the standings to see where they sit, he said, and he anticipates the series will build excitement as it becomes more established over the years.