Dinja's Hermes Removed from NOP List, Rixt van der Horst's Fonq Added

Dressage

The Netherlands

Hermes, Holland's best scoring international dressage horse, has been removed from the NOP support programme.

No new dressage horses were signed for the 2025-2026 cycle. One para dressage horse got signed.

NOP

The NOP Foundation provides financial support to the owners of the horses that have Team NL potential to prevent these horses from being sold. The project was initiated in the 1980s and carried out through the 1990s. Horses competed with the "Olympic" prefix at the time. The project ended due to lack of funding, but was rekindled in 2013 under the NOP name.

NOP works closely together with the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC*NSF) and the board includes Hidde Frankena, Andre Cats, Emile Hendrix, Frank Kemperman and Bram de Feijter.

NOP and NOPT

Over the years NOP has shown a much greater interest in show jumping horses.

Past NOP horses are Avanti, Expression, Zonik, Toto Jr, Dream Boy, and Desperado but as of 2024 only Hermes, Habibi, and Torveslettens Titanium were part of the programme.

In 2024 NOP began including young Grand Prix talent as part of the NOP Talent Plan (NOPT) banner. Kuvasz, Luxuriouzz, Koko JR were NOPT signed.

Declined to Sign

Following the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, NOP wanted to resign horses with the 2026 World Championships as goal, where Olympic team qualification is at stake. Several owners, however, rejected the offer to have the liberty to sell their horses. The most prominent one being Hermes.

"For various reasons, several contracts have also not been renewed," KNHS stated. "The decision not to renew a contract can be made by the N.O.P Foundation, but of course also by the owner. The latter also happened in a few cases after the Paris Games."

Hidde Frankena, chair of the NOP foundation, added, "There are still some very good horses that we would like to see in the sport with N.O.P. behind their name, but not all owners are open to that. Of course that is regrettable, but we are of course very grateful to all owners who make horses available for the Dutch top sport, whether or not those toppers carry N.O.P. behind their name.”

Hermes Dropped, Fonq Added

Dinja van Liere's Hermes, who finished fourth at the 2024 Olympic Games, is no longer NOP. Owners Joop van Uytert and Jan Anker want to explore new options in the future. For dressage only Habibi and Torveslettens Titanium remain NOP.

Rixt van der Horst's para dressage horse Fonq has been added to the NOP plan. He joins para horses Caramba (Britney de Jong) and Demantur (Sanne Voets). Daula (Demi Haerkens) and Alphavilla (Frank Hosmar) have been dropped, as well as the retired Rosenstolz (Lotte Krijnsen).