Israel will send six rider-and-horse combinations to next month's FEI World Championships in Aachen, Germany, ONE reports — a rare campaign spanning both show jumping and dressage in the same trip.
The championships run at the historic Aachener Soers grounds from August 11 to 23 and double as the first qualifying event on the road to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, raising the stakes for every pair well beyond rankings and medals.
Five of the six combinations go in jumping. Daniel Bluman, currently ranked ninth in the world, partners Corby V.I.; his cousin Mark Bluman rides Landon de Nyze; Theodore Boris is paired with Kazan Z; Robin Muhr — the Monaco-born Israeli who jumped at the Paris 2024 Olympics — rides Foudjoua de Stel; and Isabella Russekoff, another Paris Olympian, teams with C Pier 2 as the reserve combination, according to ONE.
The sixth pair carries historic weight. Micah Deligdish and Carpe Diem de Massa will represent Israel in dressage — the country's first dressage entry at a world championship since 2010, ONE reports, with delegation head Dr. Amichai Alprobovitz noting that Deligdish qualified only ten months after giving birth.
Alprobovitz framed his ambition for the individual events modestly but pointedly: "I hope at least one rider qualifies for the finals, where the best 25 pairs compete," he told ONE.
Thirty-two nations have entered the team competition, with ten advancing to the final and the top seven nations — excluding the United States — securing qualification places toward Los Angeles 2028.
Bluman, who switched from competing for Colombia to Israel in 2016, finished 16th at the last edition of the championship four years ago in Herning, Denmark. His cousin Mark only joined the Israeli team at the end of June, giving the family two riders on the same squad for the first time at a major championship.
For Muhr and Russekoff, Aachen is a chance to build on Paris, where both competed in individual and team jumping for Israel. The championships arrive a little over two years before Los Angeles, with qualification places narrowing the margin for error for every nation involved.
