A guide to the 2025 Longines FEI Jumping European Championship

Steve Guerdat will be in A Coruña, Spain, to defend his title from the 2023 Europeans – this time he will not be riding Dynamix de Belheme but Albführen's Iashin Sitte. Photo © Jenny Abrahamsson for World of Showjumping.

Text © World of Showjumping

The 2025 Longines FEI Jumping European Championship kicks off this week at Casas Novas Equestrian Centre in A Coruña, Spain – and WoSJ has made a guide for our readers to make it as easy as possible to follow the event.

A total of 18 nations will be lining up full teams for this year's Europeans: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Sweden. Five countries have entered with only individual riders, bringing the total number of athletes to 90.

Defending team champion is Sweden, while Switzerland's Steve Guerdat holds the title individually from the 2023 Europeans in Milan, Italy.

The full list of definite entries can be found here.

Format:

The 2025 Longines FEI Jumping European Championship is jumped over four days of competition. However, before the competitions begin, the horses have to pass a veterinary inspection which takes place on Tuesday at 10.30 CET. A second horse inspection will take place on Saturday at 9.30 CET, prior to Sunday's individual final.

After the first horse inspection on Tuesday, a training session follows – starting at 15.00 CET.

The first competition of the 2025 Europeans takes place on Wednesday, and is conducted over a big Table A course set at a max. of 1.50m and judged under Table C, without a jump-off in the event of equality for the first place. It starts at 15.00 CET.

The score obtained by each rider in the first round will be converted into penalties according to the following method in the FEI's rules: Each rider’s time will be multiplied by the coefficient 0.50 and converted into points; the points must be rounded to two decimal places. The second decimal place will be rounded up from .005 and rounded down from .004. The rider with the lowest number of points after this conversion will be given zero penalties, the other riders being credited with the number of penalties representing the difference in points between each of them and the leading rider. Riders who are eliminated or retire will be penalised with 20 penalties more than the rider who has been the most severely penalised after the times of all riders who completed the competition have been converted into penalties.

The second competition is jumped over two rounds, which take place on Thursday and Friday respectively – and this is when the team medals will be decided. It will be a Table A not against the clock and without a jump-off, and the course will be a max. of 1.60m. First to start on Thursday are all the individuals, then the teams in two groups based on the results of the best three horse-and-rider combinations – out of four – on each team from Wednesday's competition. Thursday's competition starts at 15.00 CET.

The best 50 horse-and-rider combinations, plus those tied for 50th place, after Wednesday and Thursday's competitions are allowed to participate in Friday's class which will decide the podium for the teams. This competition starts at 16.15 CET.

If the riders qualified for Friday's round are not members of a team which has been qualified to participate in this last round of the team competition, these individual riders will compete before the team riders.

Friday's competition is open only to the ten best placed teams and those teams equal on penalties for tenth place. The teams carry their penalties forward from Wednesday and Thursday's competitions. The teams start in reverse order of their penalties, with the team on the best score going last.

The rules for the European Championship apply the drop-score: The teams receive their placing by adding together the penalties incurred by the best three of four horse-and-rider combinations on each team. The team, which has the least number of penalties will be placed first and declared European Champion.

On Sunday, the individual medals will be decided and the action kicks off at 14.00 CET. This competition is conducted over two rounds, each judged under Table A not against the clock, where the course is set at a max. of 1.60m. The first of these two rounds is compulsory for the 25 best-placed horse-and-rider combinations after the three prior days of competition. The second and last round is open to the 12 best-placed horse-and-rider combinations, after scores from Sunday's first round have been added. The horse-and-rider combination with the least penalties after the four days and five rounds of competition will be placed first and declared the European Champion. In the event of equality for one of the first three places there will be a jump-off for the medals.