Equestrian Olympics 2028: LA28 Dates, Venue and Qualified Teams

Equestrian at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics runs from 14 to 29 July 2028 at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, with eventing first, dressage in the middle and jumping closing the programme. Six medal events are on offer, the sport keeps its 200 horse-and-rider quota places, and after the FEI World Championships in Aachen in August 2026 the first 20 team tickets are already decided.

Santa Anita Park, a thoroughbred racetrack at 285 W Huntington Drive, is the same site that hosted the 1984 Olympic horse events, so LA28 brings the sport back to familiar ground. All three disciplines run in one venue over 16 days, starting on the day of the opening ceremony and ending the day before the closing ceremony. The timetable, confirmed by the FEI in November 2025, builds in three days without competition (19, 23 and 27 July) and keeps horses out of the arena between noon and 4 p.m., a deliberate answer to the Southern California summer heat. Alec Lochore of Great Britain will design the eventing cross-country track, assisted by Mike Etherington-Smith, and Ireland's Alan Wade returns as jumping course designer.

Eventing opens the equestrian Olympics 2028 programme. The first horse inspection is on Friday 14 July, the dressage phase runs on 15 and 16 July from 9 a.m. local time, cross-country takes place on the morning of Monday 17 July from 8 a.m., and the jumping phase on the evening of Tuesday 18 July decides both the team and the individual medals, the first equestrian podiums of the Games.

Dressage follows with its horse inspection on the morning of 18 July, before the eventing final. The Grand Prix, which serves as team competition and individual qualifier, is split over Thursday 20 and Friday 21 July with morning (9–11:45 a.m.) and late-afternoon (4:15–7 p.m.) sessions. The Grand Prix Special on Saturday 22 July is the team final, and after a rest day the Grand Prix Freestyle on Monday 24 July, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, crowns the individual champion.

Jumping closes the fortnight. The team qualifier is on Tuesday 25 July (9 a.m. to noon), the team final on Wednesday 26 July (9–11 a.m.), and after the second horse inspection on 27 July the individual qualifier runs on Friday 28 July. The individual final on Saturday 29 July, which organisers are already calling Super Saturday, is the last equestrian medal of LA28. All times are provisional and the FEI has said the schedule will remain subject to change up to Games time.

The quota is unchanged from Paris 2024: 200 places, split into 75 for jumping, 60 for dressage and 65 for eventing, with a team and an individual medal in each discipline. As host nation the United States is guaranteed a team in all three. Participation has been growing: 30 nations rode in Los Angeles in 1984, a record 50 in Tokyo and 49 in Paris. The qualification systems were approved by the FEI General Assembly and by the IOC Executive Board in December 2025.

The FEI World Championships in Aachen (11–23 August 2026) were the first and biggest qualifier. In dressage on 12 August, Germany won team gold on 235.063 per cent ahead of Great Britain (231.445) and Denmark (229.426); those three plus Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden took the six team quotas, while the eighth-placed United States was already in as host. In eventing on 16 August, Great Britain won on 84.0 penalties from Germany (95.6) and the United States (113.5), and Michael Jung took a fourth individual world title on fischerChipmunk FRH; Great Britain, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Sweden and Belgium secured the seven team places. In jumping on 21 August, Germany (4.48 faults) beat Belgium (11.69) and Great Britain (12.98), with the United States fourth; Italy, Switzerland, Ireland and France completed the seven qualified teams, and defending world champions Sweden finished tenth and missed out.

Plenty of doors remain open before the equestrian Olympics 2028 field is final. The 2027 European Championships hand out three more team places per discipline, with jumping in Waregem, Belgium (11–15 August 2027) and dressage in Randbøl, Denmark. The 2027 Pan American Games in Lima (16–31 July) offer two dressage team spots for the Americas, and regional group slots protect places for Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Oceania. The FEI Olympic ranking period for jumping closes on 31 December 2027, riders must meet minimum eligibility requirements by 11 June 2028, and final entries are due on 26 June 2028. Horses must be at least nine years old in eventing and eight in dressage, so many of the animals bound for Santa Anita are only now stepping up to championship level.