Simonson Withdraws Indian Rock from U.S. WEG Team Contention

Dressage

U.S.A.

Indian Rock, the U.S.A. highest scoring Grand Prix horse of the moment, has been withdrawn from U.S. team contention for the 2026 World Championships in Aachen.

WEG Hopeful

American maecenas Heidi Humphries of Zen Elite Equestrian purchased Dutch Olympic team horse Indian Rock (by Apache x Vivaldi) as a WEG and LA Olympic hopeful for Simonson in December 2024.

After four CDI's together, Christian and Indian Rock were the first to clinch the North American League ticket to the World Cup Finals, where they finished second.

One month later at the 2026 U.S. Grand Prix championships (a mandatory US team selection trial) the pair won the Grand Prix (75.196%) but dropped to 6th place in the Special (68.532%) and was withdrawn from Championship.

No Europe for Indian Rock

The 13-year-old KWPN stallion is not being flown to Europe with the other U.S short-listed team combinations for final team selection.

"After a lot of discussion with the team, we’ve decided not to include Indian Rock in our summer championship team plans this year," owner Zen Elite announced. "Rocky has given us an incredible season, and we couldn’t be more proud of everything he has accomplished. He has exceeded our expectations in every way, and we feel the best decision for him right now is to enjoy a well earned break and some time to simply be a horse.⁣"

Rocky will get a break from showing.

"We believe that building great horses for the long term means knowing when to continue forward and when to give them the opportunity to recharge," Zen Elite continued. "We want to set him (Indian Rock) up for continued success in the years ahead.⁣"

Christian will focus on team selection with his second GP horse, 16-year old KWPN gelding Fleau de Baian (by Jazz x Ulft) with whom he finished fourth at the U.S. Championships.