2024 complete, let's look at the leading riders by nationality, starting with the USA.
While Germany tops Hippomundo’s dressage and show jumping rankings for last year, US riders also had an exceptional strike rate, having placed in the top-five across all three sports.
Starting with riders by nationality in dressage, where the USA ranks fifth place in the 2024 results.
The top-three ranked US dressage riders in this Hippomundo category are Anna Marek, Kevin Kohmann and Paris Olympics US team member Adrienne Lyle.
In eventing, the USA was second to Great Britain. 649 British riders won a combined total of €1.4 million, for an average of €2,219 per rider, while 468 American riders earned €659,572, giving them an average of €1,409.
Eventing’s main prizemoney opportunies are the US and UK five-star events: Kentucky and Fair Hill International stateside and Badminton and Burghley in the UK.
Three out of these four events were won last year by British riders - Oliver Townend at Kentucky and Fair Hill with his Irish Sport Horse pair of Cooley Rosalent and Ballaghmor Class, plus Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo (Burghley).
New Zealand’s Caroline Powell, and another Irish-bred in Greenacres Special Cavalier, prevented a total clean sweep by Team GB. Their Badminton result pushed New Zealand up to third place, ahead of Germany on the Hippomundo leaderboard.
Back to the US eventing riders, headed by Will Coleman, Bruce (Buck) Davidson and Jenny Seville (nee Brannigan). See the complete list of American riders here. Coleman’s best payday was his Kentucky CCI4*-S win with Diabolo 556.
On to show jumping, where German riders have powered to the top of this Hippomundo section, leading the way on €18 million-plus. Next is the USA (€16,802,279), ahead of France, another nation on the €16 million-plus mark too.
As always, ‘the devil is in the detail,’ for, when we look at the number of show jumping riders recorded on Hippomundo’s database, there are 1,496 German and 3,126 French (the highest number of all countries) riders, compared to 601 American riders. See the complete list here.
Who are the top-two earning US show jumping riders? It’s close between Kent Farrington and McLain Ward with Farrington’s results at CSI5* Geneva before Christmas giving him a lead over his compatriot. Helping to tip the balance in Farrington’s favour was his runner-up place in the IJRC final with Toulayna (pictured), a result that edged him ahead of Ward in the end-of-year rankings by €10,654.
Both veterans were the only US riders to break the seven-figure prizemoney mark last year (€1.3 million-plus). Lillie Keenan, the third-placed American rider, earned over €739k and at 46.8%, had the highest rate of placings per competition amongst the U.S group, again just edging out fourth-placed Aaron Vale (46.1%).
Best win conversion strike rate amongst the top-10 US riders? McLain Ward, who won 8.4% of his classes in 2024. McLain’s biggest ‘payday’ last year? €300,000 for Ilex and his runner-up place in the Aachen Grand Prix.
The next-best prizemoney percentage score of last year amongst American riders was recorded by Kristen Vanderveen and their top-10 show jumping riders are a healthy mix of established and next generation athletes.
Kent Farrington (12th) and McLain Ward (13th) are just as closely-grouped on Hippomundo’s top-earning show jumping riders 2024 leaderboard, headed for the first time by Austria’s Max Kühner.
McLain Ward, Karl Cook and Laura Kraut won team silver at the Paris Olympics (Want to revisit the Olympic show jumping team results? See here).
Silver in Paris, two more seconds for Team USA in Hippomundo’s eventing and show jumping riders by nationality final rankings for 2024 - a sterling year.
