Asian Games 2026 Equestrian: China's First Team Dressage Gold

Asian Games 2026 equestrian: dressage medals decided

Update (2026-09-27): Korea's Dongheon Nam and Leonidas won Asian Games individual dressage gold on Sept. 27, 2026, with 75.190% in the Intermediate I Freestyle final at JRA Equestrian Park in Tokyo. China's Jiayi Yu and Jackpoint took silver on 75.050%, and teammate Jiayi "Sarah" Rao and Geniaal won bronze on 74.935%.

Two days earlier, on Sept. 25, China won its first-ever Asian Games team dressage gold with a combined 208.148. Korea took team silver on 205.265, host Japan bronze on 204.117, and defending champion India finished fourth on 201.971.

The Asian Games 2026 equestrian program belongs to the Aichi-Nagoya Games, but the horses compete in Tokyo. The venue is the Japan Racing Association's park in Setagaya, known locally as Baji Koen. It also hosted equestrian events at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

This page is your hub for the whole equestrian program: what's been decided, how medals are scored and what's still to come.

Individual dressage: Nam edges the Chinese pair

• Less than 0.3 points separated the podium, according to Eurodressage.
• Nam bounced back. He topped Friday's Prix St Georges on 70.559% but placed seventh in Saturday's Intermediate I (68.147%), which Jiayi Yu won on 71.853%.
• A Small Tour final. Fifteen combinations qualified, with a maximum of two per nation, and all rode the Intermediate I Freestyle, Horsesport reported.
• Just off the podium: Aleksandra Maksakova (Palestine) and So Secret were fourth on 74.430%. Japan's best was Shingo Hayashi on King Leatherdale O (73.030%).
• A long wait for Korea. It is Korea's first individual dressage gold since Incheon 2014, the Korea Herald noted, and Nam also rode on the silver-medal team.

China's gold-medal team

• Jiayi Yu set a personal best and led the team, according to Everything Horse UK.
• Korea's Dongheon Nam and Leonidas posted the day's top individual score, 70.559%.
• Korea is back on the podium. Korea won every team dressage title from 1998 to 2014, took silver in 2018 and missed the medals in 2023, the Korea Times noted.
• India just missed. The champions from Hangzhou finished 2.146 points behind Japan, led by Shruti Vora on 68.059.

This was also the first Asian Games to use a mixed dressage format, allowing both Small Tour and Big Tour combinations to compete. Small Tour is the Prix St. Georges and Intermediate I level, a step below Grand Prix, and Big Tour is Grand Prix level.

How the team dressage score works

Dressage looks mysterious on TV, but the math is simple. Each judge scores every movement from 0 to 10, and the totals become a percentage of the points available. A 70% ride is strong at this level.

For the team medal, each country rides four combinations. The three best percentages are added together, and the lowest is thrown out. That's why the scores look like 208.148 instead of something out of 100.

Check China's math:

1. Jiayi Yu: 70.265
2. Jiayi Rao: 69.618
3. Zhanzhao Gu: 68.265
4. Total: 208.148. Yue Wu's 67.735 was the drop score.

The drop score is a safety net. One tense horse or a costly mistake doesn't sink the team, but everyone still has to ride as if they count, because nobody knows in advance whose score will be dropped.

The individual medals work differently. The two qualifying tests decided who reached the final, and the freestyle, ridden to music with the rider's own choreography, decided the medals. Judges score both the technical execution and the artistic side, which is why freestyle percentages tend to run higher.

Want to know what the judges look for, from straightness to piaffe? Read our explainer on how dressage is scored, and see /en/disciplines for the basics.

Eventing recap: Thailand and Alex Hua Tian

Eventing finished on Sept. 23, and it was dramatic.

• Team gold: Thailand (109.9 penalties). Thailand started the final day third, then produced three clear counting cross-country rounds to pass Japan. Japan took silver on 115.2 and Korea bronze on 143.5.
• Individual gold: Alex Hua Tian (China) and Manjushri, 26.9. He finished on his dressage score and defended the title he won in Hangzhou in 2023.
• Individual silver and bronze: Thailand's Woraphat Sittiju on Uster de Chanay (30.1) and Japan's Yoshiaki Oiwa on Ottawa des Desig (31.7).

The schedule shifted because of an approaching typhoon, so cross-country was run as the final phase. In eventing, lower scores are better, the opposite of dressage.

New to the sport? Our guide to what eventing is explains the three phases and how penalties add up.

Which equestrian events are at the Asian Games?

The Asian Games include the three Olympic equestrian disciplines and seven medal events. Eventing and dressage each award one team and one individual title; jumping awards a team title plus two separate individual titles, Individual Competition A and Individual Competition B.

The FEI (the sport's world governing body) sanctions the competition. Only horses and riders that meet its qualification rules can start, and every horse passes vet inspections before competing.

How show jumping medals are decided

Show jumping is the easiest discipline for newcomers to follow. The rider with the fewest faults wins.

• Knockdown: 4 faults for each rail that falls.
• Refusal: 4 faults for the first stop. Under current FEI rules, a second refusal means elimination.
• Time: 1 fault for every second (or part of a second) over the time allowed.
• Fall of horse or rider: elimination.
• Ties for gold: usually settled by a jump-off, a shorter course where the fastest clear round wins.

Team jumping works like team dressage: in each of the two rounds, the three best results per team count. The individual medals are split in two. Individual Competition A is jumped at up to 1.45 m in the first round and up to 1.50 m in the second; Individual Competition B goes up to 1.55 m in both rounds. In each, the best 20 riders after the first round, with a maximum of two per nation, go through to the second round, and each competition has its own medals. For the exact format of each round, check the official results page.

What's still to come (and when)

Here's what's left on the Asian Games 2026 equestrian schedule. Times and session order can change, and the typhoon already forced one reshuffle, so confirm on the official Aichi-Nagoya 2026 timetable.

• Oct. 1, 3 and 4: show jumping. Tokyo's official sports site lists equestrian sessions on these days, and jumping closes the program. Under the official technical handbook's timetable, the team final (two rounds) and team medals come on Oct. 1. Individual Competitions A and B ride their first rounds on Oct. 3 and their second rounds on Oct. 4, when both sets of individual medals are awarded. That makes three jumping titles in all.

No jumping results exist yet. We'll update this hub as medals are awarded, but we won't guess.

How to follow along

• Live results: the official Aichi-Nagoya 2026 site has daily schedules and real-time results for every sport.
• FEI: inside.fei.org has start lists, reports and the Asian Games event page.
• Social: the FEI (@FEI_Global) posts medal news on X.
• In person: tickets are sold through ticket agencies and at convenience stores across Japan. The venue is in Setagaya, Tokyo, not in Nagoya.

What to watch next

• Can China add more? Team dressage gold, individual dressage silver and bronze, and Hua Tian's eventing title make it the program's story so far.
• Korea's revival. Team silver and Nam's individual gold put Korean dressage back at the top after a medal-less 2023.
• Japan at home. Japan has team silver in eventing and bronze in dressage, and its jumpers compete in front of a home crowd.
• Rising programs. Thailand's eventing gold shows how far Southeast Asian riding has come. Watch for surprise names in jumping.
• Horse welfare. Heat, travel and typhoon weather all test horses. Watch the vet inspections as closely as the scoreboards.

Inspired to try it yourself? Start with our get-started guide, or find out what goes into a first competition in show prep. If jumping is your thing, follow the next big series in our FEI Jumping World Cup 2026/27 guide.