SHOW jumping begins next Thursday, August 1st, in Versailles with the team qualifier, with the individual competition starting on Monday, August 5th. The reigning Olympic champion, Britain’s Ben Maher, returns but he rides a much more experienced horse (Point Break) than four years ago, when he was pinned as the favourite and delivered.

This time round the favourites tag lies heavily on Sweden’s Henrik von Eckermann and King Edward, the pair that were in the jump-off for individual honours in Tokyo and cruelly finished fourth, before picking up the team gold. The 14-year-old gelding has won pretty much everything since, including individual and team gold at the World Championships in 2022, and back-to-back FEI World Cup finals in 2023 and 2024.