Team PracBritish dressage powerhouse partners Becky Moody and her homebred 11-year-old KWPN gelding and best friend Jagerbomb delivered a dynamite and near flawless freestyle to a medley of The Beatles’ hits on Saturday night at the 2026 Zen Elite FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final to top the podium on a final score of 88.33%—a personal-best score for the pair.
Dressage movements are beautiful with or without a soundtrack, but there is something magical in the freestyle when a horse and rider have the technical ability not only to ride to music but to dance with it—and Moody and “Bomb” proved to be the ultimate dance partners.
From double pirouettes, one-tempis down the centerline and one and two-tempi serpentines to Beatles’ favorites like “All You Need is Love,” “Here Comes the Sun” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” their freestyle included plenty of technically difficult choreography, sending the explosive crowd into an eruption of applause and cheers. Despite Bomb’s experience and ability to stay cool under pressure, Moody, who was clad in her signature chocolate brown jacket with crystal accents, wasn’t sure how the gelding would react to the electric atmosphere in Fort Worth’s Dickies arena.
“The crowd here was insane! I want to rent them everywhere we go,” an elated Moody said following her and Bomb’s performance on Saturday night. “It turned out to be the perfect place for him. He could feel the enthusiasm from the crowd and even though it was technically a very difficult freestyle, he was so focused and stayed right with me the whole time,” Moody said. “The beauty of the freestyle is that you get to showcase your horse’s strengths, and Bomb finds the changes on curved lines very easy because he’s so balanced that he can easily transition from one movement to another without a struggle. All our horses are complete and utter diamonds, but Bomb was absolutely unreal tonight.”
To the home crowd’s delight, the U.S.’s 23-year-old rising superstar Christian Simonson and 13-year-old KWPN stallion Indian Rock brought the crowd to their feet with an explosive freestyle choreographed to the “Rocky” movies’ soundtrack to take silver in their World Cup™ Final debut—also on a personal best score of 83.81%.
Poland’s Sandra Sysojeva and her 10-year-old mare Maxima Bella rounded out the podium on a score of 80.77%, marking an impressive leap from their seventh-place finish at last year’s World Cup™ Final and underscoring just how quickly the young mare is maturing on the world stage.
The Mighty Moody Showcases Bomb’s Talent
When Moody was asked about her goals for the 2026 Zen Elite FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final earlier this week, the world no.-5 and Olympic veteran casually noted she would love to achieve a personal best in the freestyle. She along with the help of her longtime partner indeed achieved that goal with flying colors.
Moody and Bomb have been partners since he was only 3-and-a-half, and she notes that as a youngster he was a straightforward ride and very trainable, but he was a little on the lazy side. “I almost sold him when he was 4 or 5, but luckily I didn’t. He’s a big horse and his energy is the biggest thing we have to work on sometimes,” she said. “So we do a lot of strength training. We don’t train in the arena all that much, maybe three times a week. The rest of our work is focused on his fitness and conditioning. But I’ve done everything with him, which makes this journey even more special. He is the sweetest of sweethearts—and the better the crowds, the more he loves it, so he really had a good time in Fort Worth.”
In reflecting on her consistent success, Moody relies on invaluable advice she received from her longtime coach and mentor David Hunt. “He told me I was better off doing the wrong thing with confidence than doing the right thing without confidence, which I found a really interesting way of looking at things. If you’re doing the right thing, but you don’t believe in it, no one else will either,” she said. “Whereas if you’re doing the wrong thing with confidence, you’ll eventually work out that it is the wrong thing—but then you can turn it around to do the right thing.”
On another occasion Moody remembers her horse warming up really well around the edge of the arena, but when they went in to do the test, their performance was a bit lazy. “Afterward, David said, ‘How does the horse know the difference between one side of the whiteboards and the other?’ That was a really big turning point for me,” she said. “It helped me realize I needed to take ownership as a rider.”
When choosing music for a freestyle, Moody says it’s important that she and Bomb enjoy riding to it, but she also very much considers her audience when trying to select the right musical mix. “How the crowd reacts to the music is a big part of my thought process, and pretty much everyone loves the Beatles, so I thought it would be a safe bet,” Moody laughed. “But in all seriousness, creating a new freestyle to new music is really hard, especially when you’ve had one in the past that people really enjoyed. Trying to live up to that can be quite daunting actually.”
Simonson and Sysojeva Clinch Silver and Bronze
An emotional Simonson struggled to describe his elation following his and “Rocky’s” freestyle. “I don’t have the right words to describe the emotions I’m having right now. I’m so happy to be here, and I’m so proud to represent my country,” he said. “Rocky is one in a million. To take me to the World Cup™ and now a double podium placing—I get teary‑eyed just thinking about him.”
Simonson chose his freestyle music based on the obvious ties to the “Rocky” film series, but also to capture the of idea working hard to achieve success. “We wanted to really show the hero’s journey from the beginning—the struggle, the endurance and the hopeful build-up to success at the end,” he said. “I think that represents not only the journey of horses, but of life in general.”
After experiencing the crowd’s enthusiasm at his first World Cup™ Final, Simonson sees this as something bigger emerging in U.S. dressage—fun. “We need fun in our sport,” he said. “I’m super fortunate that Heidi [Humphries] and Zen Elite have been such a big part of building up dressage in the U.S., and you could really feel that tonight with the excitement in the arena.”
Sysojeva and “Maxima” have been together since the mare was a 2-year-old and their stellar freestyle on Saturday night proved the depth of their partnership. “I cannot believe it. We did not expect this, but my horse behaved so well today with no big mistakes. I’m really, really happy and very proud of her,” she said. “I was afraid of the atmosphere—it was so loud and everybody was clapping. Usually she gets too excited, but today she was happy and liked it. She’s still young and getting experience at shows like this. This was very special for me.”
For Saturday’s freestyle, Sysojeva opted to use some of the soft, subtle melodies from their freestyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics because they’re evocative of Maxima’s refined elegance and graceful movements. But for the Fort Worth World Cup™, she decided to add a splash of Texas for a crowd-thrilling finale to her freestyle with Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
This week also marked Sysojeva’s first‑ever trip to the United States. “If it wasn’t for the show, we would never have come to Texas,” she laughed. “But the people are very friendly, and we’ve really enjoyed our holiday here.”
Top-10 Finish for U.S. Riders Kevin Kohmann and Ben Ebeling
Simonson’s fellow U.S. riders Kevin Kohmann and Ben Ebeling also had strong performances in front of the home crowd, finishing in the top 10 of a star-studded field. Kohmann rode Duenensee to a ninth-place finish with a score of 76.730%, and Ebeling partnered with Bellena to finish in 10th place on a score of 74.965%.
Kohmann was thrilled with his ride with Duenensee, calling it one of their best rides ever. He admitted that he thought the scores would be higher, but nothing could dim his smile after his freestyle. 17-year-old Hanoverian gelding “Denzel.”
“Of the three World Cup Finals [we have done], this was the World Cup finals was now my absolute favorite ride,” Kohmann said. “The crowd was right there riding with you. I know they sometimes started getting loud and I got nervous that they’re going to hurt the scores. I had seen it with some other riders whose horses got nervous. But my horse liked it. My horse just got better.”
He was happy that he was able to follow through with plans he had set for the freestyle. A last-minute adjustment in his choreography paid off for his 180-degree turn in the piaffe. “I decided today I was going to start it a little bit earlier,” he explained. “I put 10 straight steps [of piaffe] in and then started turning my horse. It worked perfect with the music.”
Kohmann also got a bit of redemption after with his tempi changes. After having a miss for one half of a change in Thursday’s Grand Prix, all of his changes were clean on Saturday night. He had a “joker line” in his choreography where he could add another line of tempi changes if he felt he needed to redo anything, but he felt good with what he and 17-year-old Hanoverian gelding “Denzel” accomplished.
“I just did another extended canter [in the joker line]. I played it safe. We’re in Texas and the horse is Texan-owned, so I didn’t want to embarrass her by messing up the changes,” he said with a laugh.
Ebeling couldn’t say enough nice things about his ride on Bellena. He explained the music for his freestyle was actually made for his former mount Indeed, who he rode in his first World Cup Final in 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “We were trying a different freestyle that didn’t really work out for [Bellena], and I said, ‘You know what? Maybe I’ll go ahead and try Indeed’s old freestyle.’ And it was right away just a perfect click.”
The freestyle also clicked due to the 16-year-old Hanoverian mare’s star quality. Ebeling noted that she delivers when it counts on a big stage. “She just shines in the freestyle,” Ebeling said. “She shines under the lights when everybody’s watching her. She’s a real girl’s girl. She knows when to show off and she definitely did that tonight and I’m just so proud of her.”
Ebeling enjoyed the enthusiasm of the crowd, and people being excited about watching dressage.
“There’s really nothing like watching horses dance, and it’s an art form. For sure, it’s not the easiest thing to understand, but I think everybody can understand the beauty of it and the time and the training that comes into this particular discipline. Just to have that crowd behind us was incredible.”
While the World Cup Final is an exciting event to make as a goal, Ebeling relishes in the day-to-day experience of training horse. “This is now my second World Cup final, but at the end of the day, it’s the training that I’ve fallen in love with and I’m just hoping to bring that into the arena,” he said.
Thanks to Zoetis for our coverage of the 2026 FEI World Cup Finals. It includes lead-up events, rider interviews, competition reports, photos and more.
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