Ireland at Boekelo 2026
FEI Eventing Nations Cup Final · CCIO4*-L · Military Boekelo, 1–4 October · Briefing for Horse Sport Ireland
Good news so far
- All four team horses beat their six-run averages, by between 3.7 and 7.1 marks. The three counting scores add up to 88.6, 17.4 better than the same three horses' averages would have produced.
- Strangford and Susie Berry scored 28.0, 17th of 92 and the best Irish test of the week, 6.6 under the horse's average and the best international test in our records. Kilnamac Kasu's 30.2 is 7.1 better than his average and his best test in our records.
- Ireland are fifth, 1.0 behind France, and the team's podium chance has edged up from 28% to 30%, fourth-best of the nine. Ten of the 14 Irish combinations beat their averages.
Why this weekend matters
The team that wins here wins the 2026 Nations Cup Series outright, and every nation started on zero. Ireland arrived as the fourth team the model gives a real chance to, and Irish riders took three of last year's top ten places here. From 2027 the Series carries an LA 2028 team quota place, with double points at the Final, so this is also the first look at the format and at which Irish horses can be relied on for a four-star long-format team score next year.
Scores as they stand
| Horse & rider | Dressage | XC | SJ | Total |
|---|
Final dressage: leader 23.9 (Julia Krajewski, Ero de Cantraie); 10th place 27.1; 20th place 28.3; 92 tests completed. T marks the four Nations Cup team riders. Dassett Fortune's 33.5 is currently the team's drop score. Altitu was withdrawn before dressage and Cooley Diamond Dancer did not start.
| # | Nation | Team score | Counting |
|---|
Team score after dressage is the best three of each nation's four scores (Sweden have three riders, all counting), calculated from the published dressage results. A non-completion scores 200. The winner here is the 2026 Series champion.
The Irish team: what to watch
The ten Irish individuals
How Boekelo is won
Dressage leaders who went on to win since 2008 (Sophie Leube, 2021). Even so, 14 of the 17 winners were inside the top five after dressage.
Cross-country rounds clear, and clear inside the time, across all editions since 2008. Quick ground lifted the inside-the-time rate to 24% in 2025 after 5% in 2024.
Show jumping rounds clear inside the time on record here; 19% last year. The final phase moves the placings more than at most four-stars.
The course is new this year. Adrian Ditcham, in his seventh year designing here, has reversed the direction of the track, so none of the 26 fences follows last year's line and the larger water complex now comes early. The winners' finishing scores since 2021 have ranged from 24.8 to 28.8; tenth place has finished between 33.9 and 35.0 in each of those five years. Last year Sarah Ennis finished seventh on her dressage score of 31.3, and Padraig McCarthy eighth from 27.4 by adding only 4.4, the template for an Irish top ten here.
The nine teams: before and after dressage
| Nation | Avg team Elo | After DR | Pre-comp win | Pre-comp top 3 | Win now | Top 3 now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Britain | 648 | 78.8 (1st) | 56% | 82% | 53% | 81% |
| Germany | 608 | 79.1 (2nd) | 20% | 74% | 29% | 77% |
| France | 590 | 87.6 (4th) | 22% | 80% | 15% | 72% |
| Ireland | 444 | 88.6 (5th) | 2% | 28% | 2% | 30% |
| USA | 494 | 84.0 (3rd) | <1% | 13% | <1% | 13% |
| Switzerland | 509 | 92.1 (7th) | <1% | 8% | <1% | 14% |
| Netherlands | 443 | 91.6 (6th) | <1% | 6% | <1% | 7% |
| Belgium | 478 | 94.5 (8th) | <1% | 9% | <1% | 5% |
| Sweden | 440 | 98.5 (9th) | <1% | <1% | <1% | <1% |
Average team Elo is the mean EquiRatings form rating of the horses actually named on each Nations Cup team this weekend (three for Sweden, four for everyone else), so it measures the hand each chef d'équipe has chosen rather than the nation's full entry. The field median for an individual horse is 502.
Win chance and top-3 chance are EquiRatings' pre-competition model for the team competition, run on the named teams before the first dressage test. The two right-hand columns are the same model re-run on the dressage scores. We will circulate updated figures after cross-country.
Great Britain started as clear favourites at 56% and lead after dressage, but only by 0.3 from Germany, whose chance has risen from 20% to 29% behind Julia Krajewski's leading 23.9. France slipped to fourth and 15%.
Ireland went in with the seventh-highest team rating but fourth on podium chance at 28%. After dressage they are fifth on 88.6: 1.0 behind France, 4.6 behind the USA in third and 3.0 clear of the Netherlands. The podium chance has risen to 30%, more than double the USA's 13% despite the USA sitting ahead on the scoreboard. Kilroe Tiger is the quickest of the four and the model expects only about three time penalties from him; Strangford, Kilnamac Kasu and Dassett Fortune are expected to collect six to eight each. Four clear rounds on Saturday would give the team a real chance of passing France and the USA.
The Irish record at Boekelo
- Winners
- No Irish winner in 53 editions, 1971 to 2025. The title has gone to Great Britain 17 times, Germany 13, New Zealand 9, France 8, Switzerland and the USA twice each, and Sweden and Belgium once each.
- Podiums
- One since 2008: Camilla Speirs and Portersize Just A Jiff, 2nd in 2011 on their dressage score of 32.5.
- Top tens
- Twelve since 2008, five in the last two editions. In 2024 Susie Berry was 6th (Clever Trick) and Padraig McCarthy 10th (Pomp N Circumstance); in 2025 Sarah Ennis was 7th (Grantstown Jackson), McCarthy 8th (MGH Zabaione) and Berry 10th (John The Bull).
- Since 2021
- 49 Irish starts, 37 completions (76%), 30 clear cross-country rounds from 49 (61%) and seven inside the time (14%). The field completes 73% over the same period, with 58% clear and 18% inside the time.
- Dressage
- Irish starters average 36.3 here since 2008 against 34.6 for the field; since 2021 it is 34.6 against 33.5. This year the 14 Irish tests average 33.7 against a field average of 32.1, so the gap is usually made up later in the week.
- Show jumping
- 34% of Irish final rounds here have been clear, against 32% for all finishers, and 22% clear inside the time, level with the field. Since 2021 the Irish clear rate is 43%.
- The riders here
- Padraig McCarthy has the most Boekelo experience in the Irish group: nine starts, six completions and a top ten on each of his last three visits. Susie Berry has completed all five of her starts, finishing in the top ten on each of her last three. Sam Watson has completed all four of his, Elizabeth Power all three (9th in 2011), Aoife Clark both of hers (12th in 2024). Godfrey Gibbons, Ben Connors and Patrick Whelan are making their first Boekelo starts.
Irish completion rate by year
Irish starters each year and the share that completed all three phases. No event in 2020.
Why this weekend matters for 2027
The Olympic route runs through next year's Series. Under the FEI Nations Cup rules approved in November 2025, one team quota place for LA 2028 will go to the highest-ranked nation in the 2027 FEI Eventing Nations Cup not already qualified, scored on the qualifying legs plus double points from the 2027 Final. Eight of the 14 Irish horses that started here are on their CCI4*-L debuts, and nine are aged nine or younger, so this weekend says a lot about the depth available next year. The pairs to watch in that light are Strangford and Kilroe Tiger, both nine and both on debut at the level; Standfast, the eight-year-old CCI3*-L winner clear across country on every international run in our records; and Kilnamac Kasu, whose 30.2 here is a new standard for him.