Charlotte Dujardin was crowned the 2026 British Grand Prix champion on the fourth and final day of competition at the 2026 British National Dressage Championships at Somerford Park on Sunday 13 September 2026.
Dujardin and Ellie Mccarthy's Oldenburg gelding Brave Heart won the Kur to Music after claiming victory in the Grand Prix on Saturday. Their scores totalled made them supreme champions in the big tour.
Double Win at Somerford Park
Charlotte Dujardin marked her return to the National Championships in style as she delivered a freestyle on Brave Heart (by Bordeaux x Tuschinki) to win the class by over four percent and become the 2026 champions.
This was Brave Heart’s first ever freestyle with Charlotte in the saddle, not that he showed that fact in any way as he confidently took to the arena, packed full of spectators, to deliver a beautiful test. Riding to Gio’s music from Tokyo 2020, the performance that earned Charlotte a bronze Olympic medal, the pair rode a complex floorplan that scored 8.5s across the board for degree of difficulty.
Speaking of how it felt riding to the music that was created for that medal-winning test, she said, “I love the music. I love riding to it; Tom Hunt did it for me. We had that Tokyo theme where I won the bronze and it has special memories for me riding it. And it's great to be able to ride it again because you sometimes think, ‘oh, because obviously I sold Gio, am I going to get to ride it again?’ So it was lovely to be able to ride it again.”
The rest of the freestyle top three was made up of 2026 World Championship duo Fiona Bigwood and her own Donna Bella, scoring 75.050% to finish in second place, followed by Gareth Hughes and Georgina Wilkinson’s Mowgli-Olympia MC with a score of 73.950%.
Third Title
This was a third National Championship title win for Charlotte, having won in 2015 with Barolo and with Freestyle in 2020 that were held behind closed doors due to Covid.
“It's always exciting to have another one here doing it”, said Charlotte, reflecting on her third win with a third horse. “I've done very few shows with him, it’s his first ever freestyle today, so we’ve not really ever practiced it.”
Charlotte reflected on how she felt the test went, “He didn't know where he was going, what he was doing, so for him to go in there and us not make any big mistakes. The degree of difficulty; there's a lot of pirouettes, a lot of piaffe turns. I did get a little bit ahead of the music at the start, so that was a little bit holding me back. But the canter work, he doesn't make any mistake in the changes. He's just so up for giving everything a go. When you go into extended canter, he's like, ‘I'm off!’, so it's great to have that feeling, and it's just lovely to be able to do. All year I've been working on the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special and really trying to focus on that because that's what really counted for the team. So I really haven't had the time to do a freestyle and it was just fun to come and do that.”
“He was just brilliant, he's just such a good little pony so I'm really proud of him.”
-- Text by British Dressage, edited by Eurodressage - Photos © Kevin Sparrow - Astrid Appels
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